Twisted Love
by Humida
Summary: Lews is a raptor who wants to prove himself, but when he is abducted by an insane pony with an infatuation for dragons he begins to question his interest and desires. when his own come to separate them he has to wonder what side he will choose.
1. Chapter 1

The paint splashes across the canvas marking it with a shade of blue. Soon it is being followed by yellows and oranges. Lews squints, looking at the painting, his reptilian eyes glancing from the sunset to the painting and back as he splashes more colors on it.

Grinning a toothy grin, he smiles. "Perfect," he hisses, a low purr rippling through his body as he observes his completed picture, brush twisting in his claws.

"It is beautiful," says a feminine voice next to his ear. "But why is there a pegasus at the center of the picture?"

He turns towards her staring at her reptilian visage with pink scales and white under belly, her feathered plume around her scalp flaring with her mood as she cocks her head, considering him. Ulna is a raptor, much like Lews himself with colors matching a rose where Lews is a more a calm blue and white. In the forest with the wind blowing and grass lifting into the wind she looks very beautiful to him.

He smiles, running his hand over his bald scalp, feeling tense around her. The painting shows one particular pony on the landscape, one with a rainbow colored mane, wings flared, a strong fierce look to her eyes. Rainbow dash he thinks was her name. "Well," he says. "I just thought I'd capture the majesty of a pony rather then simply thinking... well you know."

"Hmm..." she thinks, cocking her head to the side. "They are just food Lews. Nothing else."

"Hmph! Well..."

The crunch of wood and plaster makes him turn and he stares, eyes going wide. Another raptor is crunching the canvas in his jaws, chewing on his new painting. The large red raptor spits it out, the feathers on his scalp bristling.

"Yuck. Looks good but taste like shit!"

"Revan! That's so mean! Lews worked on that..." Lews leans down, picking up the shards of his painting. It had taken days to make it, and now... He looks at the tattered pieces, feeling tears at the corners of his eyes. It's ruined. All that hard work for nothing.

"He's just a pathetic wimp Ulna. Look at him," the creature sneers, waving his red paw in Lews' direction. "A skinny lurpy lizard. Can't even buck up and admit what he is, a ponyphile!"

"A what?" asks Lews, blinking his eyes, standing up slowly on his hind legs. The red raptor towering a foot above him, leans his snout close to Lews' own. "You heard me. You'd rather buck one of them flying ponies then one of your own kind!"

"Buck you!" Lews hisses.

"Heh, am I wrong? Prove it. Bring one of them ponies here and kill her."

"Whatever, I don't need to prove anything," snarls the smaller reptile.

"Cuz you're too weak! That's why!" The raptor laughs at his own joke, a thick groaning sound of his belly rumbling. Ulna simply stares, not saying a word. She looks sadly towards Lews but nothing more.

"Right," he hisses, moving off, looking at his now scattered supplies. The paints have been thrown about randomly on the floor, paint seeping into the earthy soil and brushes having been crushed, his tripod broken in Revan's initial attack. "To hell with both of you," Lews hisses, throwing down the remains of his supplies.

He rushes away, as quick as both his legs will take him. "Yeah, you go run to your little ponies, you Ponyphile!" he hears Revan yell. Ulna watches him go, a softness behind her eyes but she turns away, letting herself be drawn by the larger male.

The explosion of colorful light explodes in the distance, sailing quickly over the autumn grass now yellowed as the seasons begin to change. Leaves fly and dust sails as the pony dropping her hind hooves down, digs them into the floor. She throws her multi colored mane back and cheers. "Yeah! You see that Ophelia! I still got it!"

A more tired pony lands behind her, staring angrily at Rainbow Dash. "Yeah, yeah," she says, swinging her blonde braid back against her shoulders, wiping the sweat from her brow. "You're faster, so what?"

Rainbow grins broadly and punches a hoof against the other blue pegasus' shoulder. "Still faster then you Sophie, and it burns you up inside, doesn't it?"

The pony growls, her teeth grinding against one another. "One more step Rainbow and I'll..."

"You know I'm just joshing you Ophelia. Hey, anyways, who are you taking to the Canterlot dance?"

Ophelia stares with mouth agape, eyes bulging. Growling, she turns away. "No one. I don't need no pony for that."

"Haha! You still going on about how you're going to find some dragon to go out with you? I know Clare and Twilight got that, but dragons aren't that common, you know?"

"Yeah? Maybe I just want somepony that's better then the regular dunderheads!"

"Yeah...but..."

"Oh yeah!" they hear a voice high above them say. Both turn to look at a large bull of a pony with the ittiest bittiest of wings on his back. His sloped forehead and squinty eyes looking briefly towards Ophelia making her shudder. "Boo yah!" And the bull turns, running through an old tree. "Yeah, brawn over brain! Yeah!"

"Can I at least get something with a brain bigger then a tree's?" says Ophelia staring at the thing charging through the trees with his head.

Rainbow winces. That pony has been trying to gain Ophelia's attention for some time and she can see why the mare is turned off by him. "Yeah... I see your point, but you gotta' stop being so picky. I mean..."

Rainbow stares for a moment, seeing Ophelia with her back turned, her ears twitching and haunches quivering. "Hey, are you listening?"

"Yeah. Yeah," says Ophelia waving the colorful pony away. "You know... I'll um... get back to you. I've... um... got things to do..."

Rainbow sighs, feeling the brush off. Something has got her attention and she won't be chatty until she satisfies whatever has her attention. Just like a boy in a lot of ways. "Fine. Whatever. I'll catch you later."

With a gust of wind Rainbow flies off at a burst of light, whipping Ophelia's mane about. But the mare does not notice, her eyes riveted on the form crouching low in the grass, his tail swinging back and forth amongst the stalks. "Heh," she smiles. "Blue ain't the best color to hide with little boy," she whispers, licking her lips. Her heat is rising, pulse quickening. She hasn't been hunted in a long time... ever since the old dreams that won't die with the monsters towering over her like mountains. But she'd killed them all the same. Her mouth splits into a grin, red eyes glowing. She licks her lips and smiles. "Time to play little boy..."

Lews stares, flicking his tail back and forth. His stomach rumbles and he wonders if it gave him away. But the blue mare stays in her position, almost like she sees him. Her mouth splits into a wide grin and she sees him looking at her. She does see me, he thinks. So why isn't she running?

With that grin plastered across her face he sees a reflection of Revan on her visage and rises from the grass, sighing. "Buck it," he hisses. "I'm not going to be teased by some damned pony too!"

He turns away from the mare intending to head back to the raptor village when there is a flash and the mare is right before him, inches from his face. "What?" he says, caught off guard by her sudden move.

"Hello handsome. Weren't you going to have some fun with me?"

He hisses, growling. Too much like Revan already. He snaps at her with his teeth, hitting only air. "Ahhh..." says the pony behind him. "You're skipping the foreplay."

"But that's just fine with me." Her words are whispered right against his ear and he feels her tongue run up his ear. "Are you going to entertain me little boy?"

He turns quickly, snapping again. "Buck you!"

It is as sudden as it is quick, her front legs trapping his arms against his chest, one hoof crushing them tightly against his sternum. "What are you doing?" he hisses. "Let go of me! Rrraaawwwrrr!"

He snarls, stomping his feet and thrusting his hips backwards trying to dislodge the pony from his back, but the mare is pressed too close against him to snap at or dig his talons into. Worse is feeling the helplessness as her legs seem to squeeze tighter, almost crushing.

"Aaaaggghhhh! Let go!" he screams, feeling pain now. How is she so strong?

"No," she whispers against him. "Weren't you going to eat me? Well... now... I'm going to eat you."

He feels the color drain from his face, sweat starting to come down his snout. "Wha-what..."

He can hear her chuckle. "I can hear your heart hammering away in your chest. Are you scared little boy?" She runs her tongue up the side of his neck, licking some of the sweat starting to bead on it. "Excellent."

He can feel a wetness from her now. By her hips and he turns. "What the buck are you..."

It is sudden, he being thrown on the ground, arms pinned by one hoof as she explores him, her mouth running over his chest and neck. "Get off me!" he growls, feeling tears and the pangs of fear in him. "Get off!"

But she is ignorant of his pleas exploring him lower making his warmth rising. Her body moves expertly and his body begins to betray him. "No..." he hisses. "What are you doing? I... I... ack..."

She is on top of him suddenly, her flank pressed against him, quiet, simply staring at him as her body presses him into her. She begins to move with him, swaying, her body growing warm and Lews stares, strangely drawn to the pony on top of him. He finds his hands free, but instead of clawing he feels her body, his hand coming on her chest, feeling her softness compared to the others with the light sheen of fur. What am I doing, he thinks. Why do I feel drawn to her. She is leaning close to him then and smiles, cupping his chin. "You're kinda' cute, for a yoma?"

"What?" he asks, but her mouth is entering his, her tongue playing with him and though resistant at first he taste her. She taste of mint and other things and he finds himself going back to her, laying back on top of her.

When it is over she lets him stand. He is shaking and he feels humiliated as he realizes what he has just done and that he actually enjoyed it. Now he really is a ponyphile. He stares at his claws, the warmth of the pony against him still all too present. His claws clench into fist and he growls.

"Sssssss..." he hisses, trying to block out the tears wanting to come. "What is wrong with me? I enjoyed that."

"Of course," she says, licking the back of his neck. "I'm pretty good."

"Enough!" he snarls. "I'm not going to be used as your little play toy! Get..."

The pain is sharp and sudden. "You're kind of noisy," says the pony as he falls back on the hard floor. "Why don't you go to sleep for awhile eh?"

The last he sees with his good eye, is the mare sitting on top of him, her face pressed close to his, her eyes focused on him, a shimmering ruby in color. "You're going to make a good toy," she says, then his consciousness deserts him.


	2. Chapter 2

Her body is against his, stroking his body, wings spread wide, neck arched back, face flushed red with ecstacy. Lews simply holds her body while she moves in strokes with him, the raptor above him seeming most beautiful and angelic. Like Ulna, but so different.

Her eyes, red in the darkness, are so certain. No trace of the sadness or insecurity Ulna always has and her mouth looks for his, always taking him in. She moves with a surety and pushes him back, moving in rhythm with his body until his body flushes with excitement releasing into her.

But though he enjoys the feeling of this female, unknown to him, there are things that are wrong. Her cheeks seem too puffy, her body is fuzzy somehow and her feathers are too soft. His vision is blurry from an eye injury but that might be his eyes playing tricks then. But if so... why does she feel so downy soft rather then slick and smooth like a raptor?

Lews fades back into restless sleep considering these things. When he wakes he turns, instantly gagging from the smell assaulting his nose.

"So you're finally awake," says a furry creature standing on top of him with thin claws. Lews keeps his vision averted, the smell from the creature's breath having made him sick.

"What... cesspool did you spawn from?" he hisses.

"And it's nice to see you too," says the creature, hopping off from him and walking around. "And you're one to speak paleobreath. Or is that odor perfume from France, eh?"

"Shove it," hisses the raptor, now realizing the creature is a giant black rat wearing some type of crown. "Before I wake myself with you going down my gullet!"

"I'd like to see you try, lizard lips!"

"I'll..." He stops, realizing he is gripping a sheet and lying atop a soft mattress. "Whe-where am I?"

"Oh..." says a soft voiced pony coming into the small room and setting a plate with two steaming cups down at the foot of the bed. "You're finally awake," says the blonde pegasus, smiling and tilting her head, her pink mane falling before her eyes. "How nice." She looks towards him with a shimmering jade and Lews finds himself blushing.

"He-hey!" says the rat. "She's already called for!"

"Shut up," hisses Lews. "And what are you talking about? Are you some kind of ponyphile?"

The rat crosses his arms and chuckles. "Haha. You're one to speak after what you were doing late last night! Or was I just hearing things?"

"I'm not into ponies, vermin. I like reptilian..." But as he leans his right arm back feeling the soft flesh beneath his palm, his eyes widen. The creature next to him is very soft, and fuzzy. "Oh no..." he whispers.

"Heh," says the rat, turning away. "Seems I'm not the only ponyphile here!"

"Now Rat..." says the blonde pony, fluttering over towards him with barely a sound to her wings. "Be nice. He's a guest after all. It's not often Ophelia brings men to the house."

"Yeah... if you can call him that."

"Ophelia?" says Lews, turning slowly towards the pony in bed with him, shivering suddenly as he sees her red eyes opening, her hooves catching his arm, tongue running up his finger. She lifts her long neck, stretching, her full body exposed to him as she yawns with an expanse of her jaws so wide that it could impress several raptors.

She looks at him, grinning, and pushes him back against the headboard. "Hello handsome," she says. "Do you want a little tussle?"

"Now Ophelia," says the blonde pony. "Give him his room. I have breakfast ready."

Ophelia grins at him, her teeth bared and sharp. Though she is fully exposed, her neck only inches away from his teeth, Lews finds himself leaning back, his claws rising to protect himself.

"Such a funny lizard," says the pony, leaning towards him and running her tongue up the side of his neck. "Come on, better please Fluttershy before she kicks us out, or decides to join in."

"Join in?" he says, still staring wide eyed as the pony leaps off.

She turns, giving him a sly smile. "What? My flank not enough for you? I'm going to have to change that." She snaps her head towards him, snapping her teeth shut feet away from him and Lews finds his head banging sharply against the wall.

"So cute," says Ophelia. "I love your fear honey."

With a laugh, she walks out of the room slamming the door shut.

"Man huh?" says the rat, striding away. "More like powderpuff."

He stares and blinks, letting the quiet laughter from the other room be the only noise in the room. He stares at his quivering hands, his heart thundering. The pony from yesterday and the raptor from last night... He realizes that in his daze both were one and the same. He swallows and lays his head in his hands. "What is happening to me?" he whispers, and begins to rock back and forth in the bed.

The pain rips through her body and Ophelia shudders, her body shivering and wings fluttering as in her mind her blade clashes with that of another. Except she can't see it. She can't see where that blade came from or anything.

"So the warriors of today will attack anyone who is unarmed?" says the hooded woman.

"What the fuck?" growls Ophelia, attacking once more, and again. But each and every blow is deflected, bouncing off an invisible shield she can not see. Her blood is boiling. Against the desk on which she truly lies, her eyes squint up in frustration, teeth grit in anger.

But within the flash of memory the woman speaks again, as if speaking to a wayward child. "From that attack I would presume you are within the single digits, but it will take far more then that to defeat a former number two."

It is then the blade flashes. Wounds slashing across her knees, her cheeks, stomach and arms and many other parts of her body. Wounds appear almost from magic, the hood blowing away from the warrior before her, her silver hair billowing about, elfen features visible now, slanted eyes regarding her with such a lowness.

Ophelia growls as her body slams against the floor, splattering more blood from her now open wounds. She lifts her head, turning her body as the warrior walks past her towards the blonde half awakened being.

"Bitch..." she hisses. "Bitch. Don't ignore me... don't..."

But as she stretches out her hand towards her assailant her mind drifts into a blackness, and her outer body asleep on fluttershy's table shivers, a soft neigh coming from between pressed lips, unawares that a predator watches her, his lips quivering.

Lews had opened the door slowly, the hinges creaking as he pushed it open. Hearing only distorted sounds of snoring followed by the fretful sounds of a disturbed sleep, he'd pushed it the rest of the way open and walked out, his claws clicking on the wooden floor, tongue licking the air for signs of life and action. There is none but that restless moaning from the sleeping pegasus.

His lips curl in a snarl pulling back from sharpened teeth. "You should not sleep before a predator, little pony..." he hisses.

"Yeah?" says a voice behind him.

He turns quickly, staring at the large black rat with squinty eyes. "Seems to me you were the prey paleobreath."

Lews snaps his jaws before the rat's nose. "Shut up!"

The rat barely flinches, instead flicking Lews' nose with a thin pink finger. "Yeah, whatever. Like these two haven't threatened to eat me before."

Lews leans back, cocking his head to stare at the vermin before him. "What are you talking about?" he hisses. "They're ponies! Grass eaters and hay seeds! Food for us... better predators..."

"Yeah..." says the rat, snickering. "Big talk for a guy having sex with his food. Then again... why don't you look in the fridge? Tell me how much hay you really see?"

Lews raises his arms, tongue playing along his teeth. His stomach rumbles, gurgling with the hunger he has suppressed for hours because of his fear. "Shut up. I'll just make you a snack before eating the main course!"

"Yeah?" says the rat, fist knuckling against his hips. "Maybe you're just chicken?"

"What?" he hisses.

"Chicken! You're too scared to even look in the fridge!"

"I am not..."

"Bock! Bock!" The rat motions with his arms, scratching at the floor with a foot. There is a moan behind him and Lews turns sharply, noting the pony moving on the table. His heart quickening, he lowers his voice.

"Fine you fowl vermin! Shut up and I'll check the fridge."

"Chicken!"

He raises his arm in agitation and stomps over to the fridge, opening it. "See," he hisses. "There's only... oh my Celestia!"

Rather then bowls of fruit and grasses, the fridge is filled with skewered squirrels and mice, diced and slit fish, a skinned rabbit and the haunch of something that looks like a pony, still fresh and bloody, bleeding onto the base of the fridge, the blood dribbling out towards his foot. He takes an inadvertent step back and slams the fridge closed.

"What is this!" he hisses. "These are ponies but the fridge is stocked with meat!"

"Yeah..." says the rat, sidling over to him. "Throws you for a loop, don't it? Well..." he says, crossing his arms. "If you're going to try killing her you'd better do it now before ol' slaughter shy gets here."

"Slaughter shy?" he asks, leaning back, his heart thundering in his chest now, a light bead of sweat forming on his brow.

"Well, get going!" says the rat, shoving Lews towards the sleeping pony. "Times awastin'! It's eat or be eaten, ain't it! So get chomping chopper lips!"

Lews stumbles towards the pony, her long outstretched neck before his jaws. He stares from her to the rat and back again. It looks so soft and easy to access. There for the kill. He licks his canines, his hand claws clicking.

So what if she is a predator too. Predators kill each other all the time! This'll just be another kill and he'll prove to his kind he isn't the sapless fool they believe him to be.

He opens his jaws wide, leaning back, tail extended. Snarling he lunges forward only to be caught by her hoof. Hands suddenly clawing at her hoof, he struggles for breath, feeling as if she is strangling him.

"What are you doing?" she asks, slowly rising from the table, while at once forcing him to his knees.

He is gagging, having difficulty breathing. "Nu-nothing," he chokes out. Her eyes narrow as she considers him, eyes seeming to glow brighter.

"It looked like you were trying to eat me," she says, her hoof somehow tightening on his throat.

"Aaaarrrraaaack..." he gasp, feeling his bones press against one another painfully.

"Sure was!" says the rat. "Wanted to take a good ol' bite from your nice flank!"

"Is that so," says Ophelia, lifting a brow. Interestingly her hoof starts to loosen from Lews' neck as well.

"YO!" they hear, a shadow passing before the window. Lews catches a brief glimpse of a large bovine creature that is pale and white.

"Shit," growls Ophelia, smacking her forehead with her hoof. "It's that bastard again," she whispers. Her hoof continues to loosen and Lews breathes more easily, though it comes in ragged wheezes.

"Ophelia!" the voice booms. "It's your prince in shining armor! Yeah!"

"Fucking bastard," growls Ophelia, dragging Lews painfully by the neck, forcing him to walk crab style across the floor. She leans behind the fridge and pulls out a large blade, almost double her size, with a 0 at its center, a vertical line bisecting it. She waves the sword before Lews' face, sliding the bladed point across the skin of his neck.

"You want to eat pony?" she says in a seductive voice. "Good, then you're going to help me get rid of one or else..." She presses the blade under his lower jaw, twisting the blade back and forth. "I'm having lizard fillets tonight. Understand?"

He swallows, the rat behind him snickering. He feels a wetness below his eyes but nods slowly. "Yesss... I understand."

Ophelia smiles, her teeth baring with a dark gleam, her eyes shining malevolently. "Good, little toy. You're learning."

Lews swallows, his throat feeling suddenly dry, body shivering violently. NOTHING, absolutely nothing has he seen so frightening as this pony before him and he wonders if he can actually return to his land with its bullies and sullen female in one piece or even alive for that matter.


	3. Chapter 3

"Now," says Ophelia, dragging Lews towards the door. "You're going to distract our dimwitted friend while I put an end to his worthless hide. Understand?"

Lews nods, barely breathing from beneath the pony's hoof. She smiles, and kisses his forehead, releasing him gasping on the floor. "Get up boy blue," she says. "You've got work to do."

"Buck you," says Lews before he can think on what he says. Ophelia looks at him and smiles, an image of a young boy with uncombed hair staring at her, blood pouring from slits she'd caused. Her grin widens and the image falls away from the raptor, who looks several shades paler now.

Ophelia sighs, and grabs him, pushing him towards the door. "Distract him," she says.

"How?" asks the raptor.

"Figure it out," says Ophelia, kicking down the door before him and backing away rapidly.

Lews stares from the door which split suddenly, falling away in shards, to the pony who looks at him with mouth agape, a short shaved mane on his forehead. Wilted excuses for flowers are held out in his hoof which makes Lews snort. Not even half alive are they.

"Who the buck are you?" snorts the bovine, his eyes bulging and muscles seeming to grow with his efforts, wings so small straining against his back.

Lews takes a step back, fear starting to push into his mind. The creature is a lot larger then one he'd assault. And size equals danger. Trying to defuse the situation he stutters, "M-my name is Lews. Who are you?"

"Me?" says the bovine, suddenly gripping his throat and jerking him forward. "I'm Broly! Ophelia's boyfriend!"

Lews can hear her facehoof, her teeth grinding against one another. But the big brute simply throttles him, not seeming to hear the sound to his right.

"Who are you?" says the pegasus, shaking him. "Some damned runt trying to move in on my girl? Think you're dragon enough to take her from me?" he says shaking him further. "Well you're not!"

He hurls Lews across the room, slamming him back against the wall, his back creaking with the force of the impact. "You're just a bucking freak! So stay away from my girl you ponyphile! Before I turn you into a snake skin belt."

Lews' claws curl, ripping gouges in the floor, his gums pulling back, teeth grinding against one another. His eyes narrow, a snarl issuing from his throat. He rises slowly, his legs shaky. Taking a step forward he arches his back and leans forward, jaws opening, hand claws positioning to the front, opening wide. Drool issues from his mouth, eyes narrowed, tail stiffening.

"What the buck are you doing?" says the rat next to him. "He'll eat you alive!"

"He's got a damned death wish," says the bovine, looking at him with narrow eyes. Small beady eyes as he considers him less then him. Lews sees him, sees the same red eyes from another point, his stomach rumbling. Lews vision clouds over in a red haze, anger covering his sight.

The bovine takes a heavy step forward. "Come on you buckin' piece of shit. Come on."

Another voice, similar and condescending, seems to repeat those words. Red scaly skin with yellow eyes narrowing into slits. "Come on," the voice whispers. "Give up, you'll never be good enough for Ulna."

Lews shrieks, a sounds that echoes in the room catching the bovine off guard. When he charges, leaping in mid step and throwing himself at the bovine, he catches him squarely in the chest, knocking him skidding back outside. Lews leans forward, snapping viciously at the bovine's face, a mad rage filling his blood. Claws swipe randomly, scraping and skinning flesh. The pony yells, feeling warm blood warm his pelt.

"What the buck!" yells the bovine. "Get the buck off!"

As Lews leans forward, the large stallion's hind foot finds his hip and kicks forward, sending him flying back into the house, a sharp pain jarring the bone. He stands and nearly falls forward, something cracking and not placing itself just right. Lews flops to the floor, his leg twitching.

He hisses, staring at the bovine. "Heh," says the large stallion, walking towards him, both front hooves smacking against each other with a grating sound. "I'm gonna' teach you to mess with me you bucking freak!"

Lews simply watches, the clop of each hoofstep sounding deafening in his ears, and sounding more like the clicking of talons, the drooling spittle of red jaws moving towards him, red feathers bristling on Revan's back.

Tears glisten on Lews' eyes. Feelings of failure and incompetence. He digs his nails into the floor, the pain at his hips making movement painful.

The bovine raises his hoof, smiling. "Stupid lizard."

There is a flash, a whipping of bright steel and the crunch of flesh. "That's my lizard," hisses Ophelia before him suddenly, her eyes shining an intense gold. "Bucking remember it!"

She'd been mildly surprised at where things have gone. She hadn't expected Broly to get taken unawares by her little toy, nor her toy to act so violently. He's seeing things, she thinks. Something that is pissing him off. It makes her smile.

She feels a warmth at the base of her hips and runs a hoof down towards her legs. Yes, he's starting to warm her body.

Then she hears him let out a shriek, his body hitting the floor with a sickening crunk. Something cracks audibly and she sees him fall, his legs unable to hold him anymore.

"Well, that's disappointing," she says to no one in particular. Hiding just to the left of the doorway, where the wall cast a shadow on her, she watches as Broly strides in like he owns the place, hoofs connecting with one another as he flexes his muscles. With his testosterone running to his head he walks right past her, not noticing her or her sword.

"Stupid lizard," Broly grunts, lifting his huge hoof to bring it down on the dragon thing. Her dragon!

Her movement is as quick as it is sudden. The blade slices cleanly, the crunch of bone barely audible as flesh, bone and sinew split away. Broly's arm flies away, blood spraying across the room over Fluttershy's lovely chair and table and across her newly cleaned floor.

Broly stares wide eyed, watching as his arm tumbles away, rolling beneath the table. "That's my lizard," Ophelia hisses. "Bucking remember it!"

Broly's lip quivers, the blood from his severed limb spraying out. Heart racing he finally screams as the pain registers from his nonexistent limb. "Aaaaaahhhhhh! You bucking bitch!" he screams. "What did you do?"

She turns slowly, her head almost turning around on her shoulder.

"Awe, I thought you were tougher then that. You're going to be no fun."

Lews stares with jaw almost dropped. The pony before him is so calm and in control, and lethal. Her arm extended as her wings and that long blade shining without a drop of blood on it. But the results are clear and self evident across the room.

She turns slowly, her hoof resting briefly on intimate regions and Lews smells the strong scent of musk enter his nostrils. His heart races faster, body quivering, claws digging into the floor deeply.

Her scent. Her scent! She is excited by the blood! Excited by the agonies of her prey. But she can't be, he thinks. It's not right. She's a pony! Why is a pony excited by killing? That would make her a... a predator. His mind is working feverishly, grinding against gears where answers do not seem to exist.

But before he can consider this anomaly further there is a flash, her body moving quickly, appearing behind the bovine who was screaming in agonies. His final words had seemed like begging mixed with tears. But as Lews looks the bovine is staring past him, mouth agape, eyes wide and bulging. A thin slit seems to run from the bovine's hips up to the groove of his skull, colored in red. The flesh splits loudly, bone and meat crunching, sinews popping and blood spraying in wide arcs as the body falls into two nearly even halves, twitching as the death waves wash over it.

Wide eyed, he stares from the bovine to Ophelia, whose shoulders are hunched forward, wing spread wide. Slowly she straightens her body, her wings folding back into place and turns to look at him with her golden eyes. Lews can feel himself trembling violently. Here before him, here, is a true predator. And Lews feels afraid...


	4. Chapter 4

His body is shivering, shaking uncontrollably. Lews stares at the pony striding towards him, her hips swaying side to side, an expression as cold as ice in her eyes. He grits his teeth, claws sinking deep into the soft wood of the cottage. So this is how it'll end, he thinks, thinking of the image of the pink raptor with her long mane of feathers cascading down her back. And I never even told her how I felt. Ulna...

He thinks of her stroking his cheek and her lips pressing against his, soft and warm. But, he thinks, the feeling is too real. His eyes open slowly, looking at the pony before him, her lips locked with his. She pulls away slowly and smiles softly. "I'm not going to hurt you idiot."

"Huh?" he says, not comprehending. He licks his lips, her kiss still lingering on his skin. He clicks his teeth momentarily, trying to find his voice. "I... I..."

"WHAT THE BUCKING HELL DID YOU DO TO MY LIVING ROOM!" a voice booms behind them.

Both turn to look at the blonde pony, with her mouth agape. Her mouth is quivering, eyes wide and bulging, red veins seeming to press forward, her pupils very small.

She sees the murder thinks Lews. How's Ophelia gonna' talk her way out of this one?

The yellow pony stomps her hoof down, loudly pounding the floor twice rapidly. Nostrils flaring she heads towards the pair, her wings flared wide. Rather then fear, the pony seems recklessly angry. She does not even note the blood or hesitate as her hoof comes down on a half of the stallion's parted skull, hoof crushing brain matter and plastering it deeper into the wooden floor. Lews simply stares, mouth agape. Ophelia on the other hand simply smiles, staring nonchalantly at the pink maned pony.

"Now you look here," says the blonde pony in a surprisingly gentle tone. "You..."

"Took care of the bastard scaring your chickens and making a mess of your garden," says Ophelia, looking at one of her hooves while avoiding the pony's gaze.

The pony looks towards the mess on the floor only now noting the gore clinging to her hoof. "That was him?" she says, pointing at the bloody remains on the floor.

"Who did you think it was?" says an obnoxious voice to their right. The rat walks directly towards the pony, smiling. "Yours truly?"

"Actually," says the blonde pegasi, "Yes. Yes I did."

"Hey!" says the rat waving his hands before him. "I just do the eating and laundry here. You do the dirty work."

The pony gives him the stare, one eye squinting up, the other getting large and nods, sighing. "Yes, I suppose you're right."

Her wings fold back up, shoulders slumping. She turns to the remains of the once formerly bold stallion, staring at it with a disdainful look. "He had what was coming to him. I suppose I'd have finished him myself..." She regards the blood on the table and couch and all over the floor. "Look at this mess. It'll take hours!"

Pushing her hooves against one another she cracks her neck. "I'd better get started on cleaning up then!"

"Hey!" says the rat. "Before you go doing that, razor butt here needs to see a doctor."

"Really?" says the pony, fluttering over to him. "What's wrong with him?"

He stands, pushing himself away from Ophelia, fear of both ponies taking hold of him. "Nothing!" he snarls. "I'm lea..."

But his leg soon shakes and gives way, buckling beneath his weight, making him scream out in pain.

"I see," says the blonde pony, rubbing her hoof under her chin. "Let's see here."

"Don't ..." says the raptor, leaning his claws towards her. But these are soon caught by Ophelia, who pulls them back.

"She's the closest thing to a doctor we're going to have here, so you'd better let her take a look."

"What? Why can't I go to a doc... AAAAAAaaaaggghhhhhh!" The sudden sharp pains that rush up his spine make him shriek as the pony presses her hoof down into a gap of flesh that seems oddly empty.

"I see," says the pony. "Looks like it's dislocated. Ophelia, continue holding him, rat, take his tail." The rat does as told, quickly grabbing Lews by the tail, pulling it taught.

"Hey!" he growls. "What are you doing?"

"Wish we had another pony to hold his foot.. ah, yes." Her hoof comes down on his good leg, pressing down on it. "A little awkward, but this is the best we can do."

She lifts his bad leg, shafts of pain lancing up his back. "Wh-what are you..."

Before he can respond with more coherent words the pony twist and with a crunch, pushes inwards. There is a snap followed by a pain so intense that Lews screams horribly, the sound loud enough to make the animals outside shriek with fear. The birds flap wildly, cawing, chickens bawk and a general commotion takes place outside.

The yellow pony ignores it, lightly placing Lews' foot back down and stepping off his other. "There. There," she says, lightly patting his head. "That wasn't so bad was it?"

The sweat is beading on his forehead, heart thumping madly. His leg hurts horribly. And part of it feels numb. He pushes his foot and it slides awkwardly.

"Hmm... I wouldn't advise standing on it for awhile," says the pony. "You should take him to bed Ophelia."

"Wait.. But..." says Lews, when the pony puts her hoof under his chin.

"You should stay quiet about this incident little boy," she says. "We don't want it getting out to the royal guards what we've done. Just think what they'd do to my little farm?"

It isn't her words that make him quiver, it's the look in her eyes. Words said with so little meaning but with a darkness filling that pony's normally bright eyes.

Lews swallows. "Let me go. I - I won't say anything. Please..."

"Where would you go in your state little dragon? Be a dear and let Aunt Fluttershy and Lady Ophelia take care of you, okay?"

"But.."

"Take him to bed Ophelia." The pony looks around at the room. The smell is now thick, the blood pooling around her hooves. "So much blood, and meat... and bone. Packaging and cutting and grinding..." She sighs, shoulders slumping. "Well, I've got work to do."

With these words the pony sidles off, not even glancing back at them.

Ophelia smiles, raising the raptor in both her arms and carrying him to the bed as if his weight were nothing to her at all. She lays him gently on his side, against his good leg and pushes herself against him, her body spooning his, warm thighs wet with anticipation against his back.

"Please..." he says. "Let me go. I swear I..."

Her hoof is over his mouth, voice against his ear. "Sssshhhh... You did good today Lil' Razor. Now... Just rest."

"Bu..."

"Rest." Her word is sharp and to the point. Lews shuts his eyes feeling the pony nuzzle against his neck, legs and arms wrapping around him, pulling him close. Rest does not come easy for the reptile and less so as he hears what sounds like a chainsaw whirring in the other room followed by the sounds of grinding flesh and bone. Flesh and meat splatter, the blood making wet slapping noises as bone cracks.

Lews' teeth clatter, huddling against himself, inadvertently pushing closer against Ophelia. She moans contentedly, a wing spreading and enveloping him like a blanket. It presses tight against his skin, wrapping him in its embrace. Lews' heart beats roughly against his chest, breath coming ragged as he hears the pony against him sigh, the continued whirring of the saw played with the crunching of bone and flesh accompanying the sounds of day as it falls into night.


	5. Chapter 5

The fire licks at her skin, nipping at her dress, but Ophelia can only stare. Stare at her brother Laertes as he rushes towards the purple skinned creature with her wings flared wide, horn protruding from her forehead, cold amber eyes staring down at him. She watches as the monster allows herself to be impaled by her brother's pitch fork.

"Why... why do you fight against your fate?" asks the creature with a condescending tone.

Her brother shivers. She hears him mutter something. Then the monster's eyes narrow and her fist thrust through her brother's stomach.

Ophelia moans against Lews, squeezing tighter, moaning. "Brother! Brother! No! No! No!"

She does not notice as the raptor wakens, cocking his head, looking at her with a brow arched. Does not know the tears that are flowing down her eyes.

In her dreams she sees the monster tear the flesh from her brother's stomach, staring hungrily at it, a shadow of movement and then the guts are gone in a splash across her face, marred in red. Marred with her brother's insides.

"Noooooo!" she screams, wakening with a jolt to the raptor straddling her.

"Wake up!" the raptor is hissing. "Wake up!"

She slaps him across the cheek with one hoof. "I am awake, idiot."

She slides out from beneath his grip, sitting up on the bed, sniffling. She wipes the snot from her nose and cleans away her tears.

"He was special to you, wasn't he?" says the raptor. She looks at him, Razor and turns away with a shrug.

"He was a fucking idiot," she says. "Died with a damned smile while that bitch ate him."

"A dragon," he asks.

She stands up, her shoulders tight. She is biting back her tears, gritting her teeth. The dream is still fresh, and even though she's looked she hasn't found her brother in these parts. Looking like this. She looks at her hoof, the memories slowly fading back into a pony type state.

"Who was he?" he asks.

"Who was who?" she says, picking up the sword that she'd placed next to the bed. It's her only contact with her memories. Lose it and she loses everything, all her memories from that place. She should toss the sword and get rid of it... but...

She puts the sword back against the bed stand slowly running a hoof down it. She can't let herself do that. She can't let herself forget him. The tears flow down her cheeks unbidden.

"So even you cry," says Lews.

"Shut up," growls Ophelia, looking at him with pain filled eyes. "He was..." She turns away, looking at the sword again. "He was nopony. Nopony at all!"

She pushes away from her sword, giving him a hard stare that sends a shiver down his spine. "How's your leg?"

"It'll be alright," he says sliding off the bed and nearly stumbling forward face first as he catches himself, bouncing once more off his injured leg. "You're an idiot," says Ophelia, suddenly by him. He hadn't even seen her move. "Come on," she says. "I'll help you out."

She swings his arm over shoulder, wrapping her other arm around his waist, pressing him close. "You're like him," she says. "Such an idiot."

He is silent, considering her words. What is her brother, he thinks?

The door opens slowly, the pink maned pony poking her head in. "Oh," she says. "You're both up! I was beginning to worry when I heard you moaning again Ophelia. Nightmares?"

"Yeah," says Ophelia, shrugging. "Not used to this brute's itchy hide yet."

He snaps his head towards her, ready to say something then thinks better of it. "Well," says the blonde pony, a blush crossing her face. "I have a cream that can help out with that."

"Really?" says Ophelia looking towards him. "That might be useful."

He feels his heart racing, eyes bulging. He swallows, trying to calm his senses. "But not tonight," says Ophelia.

"Yes, of course not," says Fluttershy. "When you're ready. Anyways... Rainbow Dash is joining us today. And since we have so much meat... well..."

"Ha!" he says, a sudden dark gleam in his eyes. "How are you going to hide it from her? I doubt she eats meat!"

"Well..." says the blonde pony, rubbing her hooves together. "Actually..."

There is a loud crash outside, a whopping booming noise. "Yo Fluttershy!" says an obnoxious voice. "Where's the burgers! I'm so hungry I could eat a whole cow myself!"

His mouth is falling open, eyes bulging. "Bu-but... are all of you out of whack!"

"Well," says Fluttershy, floating up next to him and putting an arm beneath his own, arm around his back. "She's actually one of my bigger customers."

Lews rolls his eyes and sighs. "Are you sure you aren't raptors hiding in pony skins?"

"Haha!" Ophelia chuckles. "Was that a compliment Razor?"

"Razor?" says Fluttershy. "Is that his name?"

"N..." begins Lews when Ophelia cuts him off.

"Yeah," says Ophelia. "His name's Razor. Lil' Razor." She gives him a grin, her eyes gleaming and Lews shakes his head.

"Whatever," he says. "Let's go eat."

Both ponies nod, helping lift him and walk him out to the living room. A living room which save for the blue pegasi with multicolored mane and tail, is spotless. Not a piece of evidence from what occurred the night before in sight.

"Woa!" says the pony, her eyes gleaming. She rushes up nearly mashing her face up against Lews.

"Is this... woa! No way! It can't be! I've never seen one before! It can't be!"

Lews slowly pushes her face out of the way, trying to get some breathing room. This is the pony he painted once? She is so...

Her face is suddenly mashed against his again. "Ohmygosh! Ohmygosh! Are you really?"

She squeals and Lews is rolling his eyes.

"What's her deal?" says Lews.

"She's never seen a dinosaur before," says Fluttershy. "Your kind are supposed to be a myth."

"A myth," whispers Lews, then thinks back on the village with the elders and his parents. The old elder walking, old nails clicking on the dirt floor. "Our kind live by anonymity," he'd said. "The best way to hunt is to never fail, and thus to never let our prey know we exist. If they don't know they can't come looking for us and prepare. If you fail in a hunt, do not let yourself be seen and better yet is to succeed with none seeing that you have done so. Do this and anonymity is our friend."

Lews shrugs. "So much for that," he whispers. "Can't hide with a broken leg."

"No hiding for you," says a smiling voice next to him. "I'm gonna parade you around town when we're through."

He looks at the pony's dark gleam, her braid swung over her shoulder and sighs. His kind would be well known now, but as pony slaves rather then hunters. How the mighty have fallen.

His head snaps up as he hears the loud banging of pots and pans in the kitchen. "Oh!" says Fluttershy, a hoof coming to her mouth. "Please.. Excuse me... I have to... I.. Um... excuse me..."

She leaves his side, fluttering her wings softly and heading to the kitchen. "P-please Rainbow Dash... no... we need that for... no... please don't pick at the food! Please..."

But from the continued banging of dishes and the loud mastication of food that he can pick up with his ears Lews can tell she isn't having luck in settling the blue mare down. His heart is beating quickly, thumping in his chest, sweat beading on his forehead.

"Is... is she going to kill her?" he asks.

"Nah!" says Ophelia. "Those two are peas in a pod. Doubt there's much Dash could do that would make ol' Fluttershy heave a basket."

"But yesterday..."

"I'd already done the dirty work," says Ophelia, "and he wasn't somepony many folks around here really liked. It'll take em awhile to even notice he's gone."

"But..."

"Come on," says Ophelia as she leads him to his seat. She sets him down without his truly noting it. His senses are all awash with the smell of cooked meats and grease, the pungent odors of flesh that is somewhat red with blood flowing, mixed with cilantro and seasonings of different sorts. His tongue brushes over his upper lip, jaws now salivating.

"You're getting hungry are you?" says Ophelia, hoof against her cheek as she leans her elbow on the table. She is smiling, a smirk crossing her features, eyes staring at him hungrily.

Lews swallows. Her kind of hunger does not look like the kind of hunger one sates with food. "I..."

She leans close, her face almost touching his. "I like that look," says Ophelia. "The look of a predator. A hunter. That's why I chose you Razor. Cuz' you're a hunter and that turns me on." She presses her muzzle against his neck, looking at his jugular. Slowly her mouth opens, tongue pushing out and sliding along the side of his neck, sending a shiver up his spine. She nuzzles against him, whispering close to his ear, "I love your smell boy. It drives me wild!"

"Ophel..."

"Please!" says a voice, slamming a plate down before him. "No hankey panky at the dinner table!" Lews looks up at the blonde pony who stares at both crossly.

Ophelia pushes away from him, leaning back against her chair. "Ugh! Such a party pooper!"

"Ygh... parrff ppffrrr.." says a muffled voice. Lews looks over Fluttershy's shoulder noticing the rainbow maned pony with a plate of her own. No less then five burgers on her plate, one half consumed inside her mouth, bun a torn mess with the meat sticking out, still dripping red blood on the rest of the burgers.

Lews stares, feeling his hands shaking and grabs the burger before him, biting down to calm his nerves. The flesh is tender and soft, but with a taste of sharpness. The cilantro and salt just notable on his tongue mixed with the slick flavor of... pony flesh.

He swallows looking at the pony gobbling up her burger and Fluttershy placing plates for Ophelia and herself, with Ophelia being quick to take a large chunk out of her own meal. He stares at the meat still dripping, smelling the musky hide still lingering on the flesh he consumes. He takes another bite, chewing slowly on meat that suddenly feels very hard. For he knows where this meat comes from. This is pony meat. And not anypony, but one in specific. Broly, the large white stallion that Ophelia cleaved yesterday. It is his flesh that is in between these burgers now and that now rest between his sharpened teeth...


	6. Chapter 6

Lews looks at the gaggle of ponies, masticating their food loudly. The blonde pony herself, with her sweet expression, chews the flesh with great gusto, her cheeks reddening, eyes fluttering in ecstacy. Lews puts the burger down slowly, his hunger seeming to have faded.

"What's wrong?" says Fluttershy, looking at the half eaten burger on his plate. "Did you not like the food?"

The rainbow maned pony gives him a cock eye. "Yeah? Don't like it?"

"No," says Razor. "It is wonderful. But I'm uncomfortable with the mares here eating horse... mmmph!"

He finds a hoof suddenly on his mouth, cutting off any sound from his lips. Ophelia just shrugs and shakes her head. "He has a bad stomach. That's all."

"Oh, poor boo boo," says Fluttershy giving him a slight glare. "That's what you get for eating your bison meat so fast."

Lews takes Ophelia's hoof, slowly lowering it from his mouth. "Bison meat?" he asks curiously.

"Yeah, bison meat," says Rainbow Dash, spreading her arms wide. "I mean I like Little Big Horn and her people, don't get me wrong, but..." She grabs another of her burgers, lifting it to her lips. "They taste amazing!" Her jaws open wide and crunch down on the bloody flesh, her cheeks bulging as she chews vigorously, her eyes gleaming with wild joy.

Lews stares, mouth agape, eye twitching. "B-bison meat?"

"Yeh!" says the blue pegasi, chunks of meat slapping Lews in the face as she speaks. "Fluddershy has a fam not doo far away fromb ere!" She says this while motioning to the west. "Habn't seenit muself but it's der!"

"Oh Rainbow Dash," says the blonde pony, taking a napkin and wiping the mare's mouth. "Please don't speak with your mouth full!"

"And yes Razor," she says, giving him a very large eye with the other narrowed. "I DO have a farm out to the West! In the Everfree Forest where the bison can roam free... until I need them!"

Rainbow Dash stares, mouth agape. "Woa!" she says, slapping her hoof on the table loudly and chuckling. "You almost scared me there Fluttershy! Almost!"

"Yes..." says Fluttershy, keeping her eyes on him. "Almost..." Her teeth gleam and a shiver runs down Lews' back. These ponies are mad! They're...

Wack!

"Ow!" Lews yells as a sharp pain lances up his arm from a quickly forming bruise from a hard edged hoof. "What was that for!" he says, growling at Ophelia.

She smiles wickedly, her lips parting slightly and his breath catches. He'd forgotten briefly who he was speaking to. She leans close to his ear and whispers. "Don't ruin it for us. She doesn't know this isn't bison meat."

"Yeah?" he says dangerously. "What's going to keep me quiet then?"

He feels something between his legs and he slams back on his chair, gritting his teeth tight. "Oh," she says smiling. "I have my ways. If you're good, we'll play," she says seductively. Then her hoof is pressing down roughly and painfully. "If you're bad, we'll still play. But there will be blood. Understand?"

With the sweat rolling down his face he nods and Ophelia releases him from the table, leaning back and kissing his forehead. "Good. You're such a sweet boy."

She rubs his chin with her hoof, and he gasp, feeling his heart thundering in his chest trying to beat its way through his ribs.

The blue mare looks from him to the other pegasi, her brows raised. "What was that about?"

"Nothing," says Ophelia, sitting back down, arms crossed before her. "Just a small lover's spat."

Rainbow scratches her head, a look of obvious confusion on her face. She turns to Lews, looking at him wonderingly and then sighs. "Whatever. It's not my business!" She shrugs her shoulders as if getting a crick out of her back and picks up another burger, putting the issue outside of her thoughts.

Lews stares mouth agape, and eye bulging. Just like that, this mare ignores what is right before her, the problem in plane sight but now meaningless to her. How can...

"Well well," says a new voice. "Someone's done some redecorating! You going for the more vented look Fluttershy?"

"Well..." says Fluttershy, running her hooves through her mane in a worried manner. "We kind of had an accident."

"Do tell," says the pony, her eyes locking with Lews.

Lews stares with wide eyes. What stands before him is a pegasi, but her pinkish skin looks shiny and almost... rubbery? Her hair, or what looks like her hair, moves and writhes wetly across her forehead, like living snakes.

Lews is now happy he didn't eat anything. The one morsel he's swallowed is wanting to come up in his throat.

The pony walks towards him, pushing him against the chair and straddles his legs. "Hey!" yells Ophelia, the anger evident in her voice. "He's mine."

But the pony ignores her, instead pressing her face against Lews' snout, her slimy tentacles brushing against his nose. "So," she says, "have you ever met a tentacle pony before?" The grin on her face is wicked and Lews wonder if there is even one normal pony in this village.


	7. Chapter 7

Her hips seem to gyrate against his own, trying to coax his body into heat, though the gorge of feeling something so wet and slimy against his skin keeps Lews from feeling heated. Instead he is trying to lean away as the pony keeps pressing her snout against his, her purple tongue snaking out of her pinkish lips and running over his snout.

"So," she says, her tongue playing over his mouth and mane tentacles sliding over and around his jaws leaving a wet trail of slime. "Ever kiss a pony before full on in the mouth?"

"Yes..." he says in a whispered mumble. "I.. No... I don't really know. Can't remember."

Ophelia is glaring at him, her eyes actually seeming to glow, her hoof gripping his forearm tightly, nails like iron seeming to dig into his arm. He winces in pain, but the pony before him with her sucker like hooves grips his cheeks, her snout against his, smiling. He only barely notes that her teeth, unlike the other three ponies, are actually sharp and pointed. Like a predator's.

He shivers, that tongue against him, tasting his flesh. "So..." says the pony. "Wanna try kissing a pony now?"

The hoof at his arm is tightening, the bone feeling a sharp sense ripping through it. "Sure," he says, sweat dripping down his forehead.

The pony is taken aback, pulling away slightly. "Really? You'd like to..."

Taking advantage of her brief movement and loosening of her grip, he slides to his left, twisting his body around and gripping Ophelia's face with both his taloned hands, parting his jaws slightly and pushing his tongue between her lips.

Ophelia stares wide eyed at first, but Lews pushes forward, his thick tongue going deep into the pony's mouth, playing with her insides, tasting her intimately. He feels her tight confines completely, her soft cheeks, the harsh molars and her own thick but smallish tongue. He pulls away only slowly, lightly pecking her upper lip, drool still connecting their two mouths, her eyes slightly dreamy.

Lews feels his heart racing and turns away, a slight blush creeping into his cheeks as he pulls away from Ophelia. She simply stares, mouth partly agape.

"Well," says the strange tentacle pony. "It seems you already made your choice who will be your first. Too bad," she says, shrugging her shoulders and trying to give him a suggestive look. "It could have been fun." She bats her lashes at him and he has to admit her eyes look appealing. That's when the plate crashes against her face with a loud crack.

She'd been angry at Medea trying to move in on her prey. The bitch seems to like to buck whatever is male and moves on legs, be they two or four. A gigantic slut if there ever was one.

The damned pegasus doesn't even pay attention when Ophelia growls at her, or when she puts her arm on Razor's own. This part is more a warning to him to not let it go too far, but the damned idiot is not paying attention. Buck! She's going to have to gut the bastard! Gut him good.

She feels the tears forming at her eyes and doesn't think why they come. All she knows is it's his fault. All his damned bucking fault.

When Medea suggest he french her Ophelia is grinding her teeth audibly against one another, hot steam issuing from her nostrils. And the raptor's answer shocks her as he seems interested in the slut's ideas. That damned...

Then he does something unexpected, gripping Ophelia's cheeks suddenly, pressing his scaly face against hers, his tongue darting out and pushing between her slightly parted lips. She pushes away instinctively, trying to get breathing room between her and him, but he presses forward, his long tongue playing in her mouth, running over her insides and licking her tonsils. She lets herself go, now enjoying this wanton feel.

She lets him use her and pushes her own tongue into his mouth, playing along his teeth and his sharpened canines, the rough ridges of his mouth. When he pulls away she is dreamy eyed and leans forward wanting to continue. Their saliva still connects them and she leans forward intending to continue when the other pony removes herself from Razor's hips, giving him a cold stare.

"Well," says Medea with a dark lilt in her voice, "It seems you already made your choice who will be your first. Too bad." She shrugs her shoulders trying to give him a suggestive look. "It could have been fun." She bats her lashes at him in that playful "come hither" manner and Ophelia feels her rage now boiling over.

"That is it!" she screams, grabbing the nearest object which is her plate covered with bits of left over pony meat. "Stay away from my stallion, you whore!"

She throws the plate full force at Medea's head. It is so sudden Medea has no time to prepare and the plate crashes against her head, shattering into several pieces. There are small trickles of blood flowing from her scalp, remains of meat dropping down with soft plops. The pony stares wide eyed, uncomprehending, until Ophelia jumps her with a left hook, hearing the mare's jaw grate.

There are voices behind her, but she doesn't care. Instead she swings her hooves again and again at the pony, hitting flesh and bone. "You bucking..."

The uppercut to her jaw is as sudden as it is powerful, jarring her lower jaw with the blow. She is stunned for the moment and not ready for the hoof that kicks back against her chest. She slams against the wall with a grunt and gets back up as the angry mare rears up on her legs, tentacles on her head splaying wide. "I'll show you, you bucking bitch!" growls Medea, stomping towards her.

Ophelia snorts, standing up, her wings flaring and her eyes going a brighter gold. "Oh yeah? I want to see you try!"

She taunts the pink mare, motioning with her hooves for the mare to come closer and Medea snorts, a growl issuing from between parted lips. As both ponies near each other, the voices at either end of them tug at their fur and manes desperately with small hands, uselessly. Nothing is keeping her from the bitch. Then the wooden floor explodes before both. The dust blows away and both stare wide eyed at the large sword in between them. A claymore half sunk into the ground, gleaming brightly.

Ophelia turns towards Fluttershy, who grips the sword tightly in a single hoof, sweat beading on her forehead, a sharp hard look to her face. "THAT. IS. ENOUGH," she says in a cold voice, enunciating each word with a dark tone.

Ophelia simply stares at the blade, her jaw dropping. Medea is of the same manner. "Y-you're a reborn!" says Medea. Ophelia looks at her quizzically for a moment, not understanding, but there is something off about Medea as well. No purpling of flesh and the blood is gone already. Why...

"What the buck is going on here?" says the raptor to her side, his eyes wide with fear, as he grips the fur on Ophelia's chest roughly. "What..."

"Yes," says Fluttershy's hushed voice. She turns her gaze from under her mane, regarding each with a dark seriousness. "I am a reborn."


	8. Chapter 8

Fluttershy's heart beats rapidly, her breaths coming out quick. They begin to slow after a time, her heart rate dulling from the thudda thudda it was making to a slow and even thud thud thud. Taking deep breaths, she yanks the blade from the floor, wrenching it in one quick motion and leaning the blade against her shoulder. She looks around at the gathered group of assorted animals looking at the expressions on each, ranging from complete fear to outright anger. She sighs and nods.

"Yes," she says quietly. "I'm a reborn too."

"Bu-but how?" says Medea. "When? Who?"

"I..." says Fluttershy.

"What the buck is going on!" yells the raptor. "What the buck is a reborn?" he says looking from one pony to another. He, of all of them, is the most confused. He is probably not a reborn but was taken in by one. Or abducted might be the more proper word. Fluttershy smiles at this.

"You're new here. You don't understand. Obviously you're not a reborn or you'd know."

"Then tell..." he says, taking a step towards her when a hoof blocks his path. He turns towards Ophelia who shakes her head before dropping her hoof. He stares, his eyes narrow slits, teeth bared. A low rumble is issuing from between clenched teeth. She keeps her eyes on him, her eyes never leaving him. He turns away with a hiss, stomping outside.

"I..." says Fluttershy.

"Why didn't you tell me you were a reborn?" says Ophelia in a dark voice. "You should have said something."

"I would have..." she says timidly. "But I..."

"Buck you!" Ophelia growls and heads out the door.

"Things are tense here I take it," says Medea, looking from the open doorway where the others left to Fluttershy, whose head hangs down.

"You have no idea," says King Rat.

"Fluttershy..." says Rainbow Dash from behind her, true concern etched in her voice. She can already feel the tears welling up in her eyes. "I..."

"Please..." says Fluttershy in a barely audible voice. "Just go."

She hears the chair behind her scrape across the floor, the plate tinkling. There is a pat on her shoulder and a soft voice. "I'm here when you need me Flutter."

"I know Dash," she says quietly. "Thank you. I just need to be alone right now."

"Yeah, I understand."

That voice that is so soft next to her walks forward, hooves clopping together loudly in the quiet room. "Alright everyone! Let's move out! Fluttershy needs alone time and we're not helping! Hup! Hup!"

"Yeesh," says rat, his fur bristling. "How bossy! We're going already!" Medea shakes her head, her tentacles quivering, but follows without a word. Rainbow gives Fluttershy one last glance and then nods and trots off.

Fluttershy sighs, setting her sword down, she begins gathering the dishes. She hears the soft padding of feet, claws clicking and sighs. "I thought I said I wanted some alone time?" she says, turning to the reptile.

"And exactly where am I supposed to go?" says the raptor, tilting its head to the side. "It's not like I'm exactly native."

Fluttershy feels her heart pumping, adrenaline flowing. Why can't he leave her alone? Why...

The reptile moves around her, taking a seat in its jaws and pulling it back then sitting himself, groaning quietly as his leg bothers him. Fluttershy sighs and nods. He's still injured after all.

"Besides," he says, leaning forward. "I want to know what all this reborn business is."

"Y-you do?" says Fluttershy, her voice quivering with some fear.

He nods. "Yes. There's something about a brother Ophelia mentioned in her sleep. She seemed... teary eyed."

"She did?" says Fluttershy startled.

Razor nods. "What is this about? What is a reborn?"

She is silent for a moment, seated, watching quietly. In her mind she can see a woman with short cropped hair, her ears almost the shape of an elf's. Pointy eared and tall. She seemed so insecure and yet... she was so powerful. The dust eater, Cassandra.

"What?" asks the raptor. "Who is Cassandra?"

Fluttershy gasp. She hadn't realized she was rambling. She shakes her head and gets up, patting the raptor on the shoulder. "Don't concern yourself about it. If you really want to know, ask Ophelia about it."

"But... she frightens me."

She tightens her grip mildly on his shoulder and nods. "As you should be, of all of us."

She takes the plates with her, cleaning off the remains in her sink and considers the woman in her dreams, and the monster in her nightmares. She still remembers, his hold on her arms. The feeling of immense pain as he begun to pull. How she begged him to stop, her bones snapping, the ligaments twisting and the splitting of flesh until her arms split, the blood splattering and the chill scream filling the air. She hadn't even realized it was hers at first.

The monster had turned her in midair, the blood flowing from her gaping wounds where her arms had been moments before. The monster had smiled, splitting her legs wide making her scream anew and started pulling again. And through all the tears, all the begging, she'd seen that woman.. The ranked number two, her golden curls, the dimple just under her cheek, staring. Staring and smiling as the monster tore her apart.

The plates crash to the floor with a clatter and she finds herself crying, being held by reptilian hands, held close to his beating heart.

"Why?" she screams. "Why didn't she do anything? Why'd she leave me there while it killed me? Why?"

Even though the raptor is confused in the end she can say nothing intelligible and simply begins to cry, sobbing against his scaly skin and burying her face into his chest. And the tears don't stop...

He lifts the sheets and places them on her shivering form, her tears still flowing and dampening the pillow beneath her hooves. Lews sighs and raises her head softly, placing another pillow before the pink maned pony as she cries anew. She squeezes both pillows towards her chest, staring at him with quivering eyes.

This does not give him answers, he thinks. Rather it makes more questions then it answers. He should find Ophelia and find out what this is all about.

He turns to leave, the sniffles at his back, when something grabs his arm fiercely. He turns to stare at the puffy eyed pony, her eyes red and her nose dribbling with snot. "Please..." she says, "don't leave."

He looks towards her an shakes his head. "And only a moment ago you'd wanted me to leave you alone."

She is quiet for a moment, looking at the floor. "Yes," she says. "But not now. Stay. Please?"

She says that final word with such a slight squeak, so much need filling it that his heart breaks and he sighs. He nods his head and takes a seat next to her on the bed. The bed creaks with his weight and he feels arms wrap around his waist, a warm snout nuzzling the center of his back, sending a shiver up his spine. Soon he can feel a wetness, her tears running down his back.

He sighs, grumbling. How'd he get into this? Why'd he get into this? He should have just left. He should have...

"Thank you," he hears her whisper.

He turns his head, looking towards her soft smile that quivers at the edge, her red eyes full of gratitude. He nods and smiles himself. Perhaps this new life will not be so bad then.

Because the blonde pony holds him close, her body snuggling against him, he eventually allows himself to lay on the bed and drift to sleep. It is a dark presence that wakens him in the middle of the night. Something powerful and dangerous. Something familiar.

His eyes open slowly and he looks into golden eyes bright in the darkness. Eyes filled with anger and brimming... with tears?

"Ophelia?" he ask, raising his head slowly. He tries to sit up when arms squeeze tighter, bringing him closer to a body that snuggles against him. He remembers then his position and realizes Ophelia's anger at the situation, especially considering what she considers him. "Ophelia, wait. I..."

Her hoof grabs his throat, squeezing tight. "No lies," she growls through tear filled eyes, her hoof squeezing, cutting his air flow. "I'm going to end it here and now."


	9. Chapter 9

Fluttershy snuggles closely against the smooth scaly skin, burying her nose into the center of the reptile's back. It's warm and comforting. A close heat to her nose. She squeezes him closer when she feels something pinching at her forehead. She scrunches her eyebrows, not liking the feel and groans quietly. But the motion continues with a hard slap to her head.

"Wha-what? Please don't..." she says, raising her head slowly.

She hears a gasping sound and sees the raptor's eyes rolling up his head, Ophelia's hoof against his neck, and she can hear the sound of flesh squeezing, crushing.

"Ophelia!" she yells, suddenly fully awake. "What are you doing?!"

Ophelia turns quietly, tears streaming down her eyes over her cheeks. "You bucking bitch," she hisses. "You..."

Fluttershy leaps at the blue mare, slamming into her with force, crashing against the floor. "No!" she yells, "Stop it!"

The hoof slaps into her cheek. It's not much of a blow but it is enough to throw her back against the cushions of the bed. She turns her head to the sounds of coughing and hacking. The raptor has turned to his side, his body shivering violently, throat gurgling and sucking in lung fulls of air. Ophelia. How could she? How...

She suddenly feels two hooves against her throat, the pressure suddenly squeezing. She grips the arms with her hooves, feeling her own air being cut off. Choking.

She struggles weakly, fluttering her wings and kicking with her feet on the floor. But she can't balance herself properly, her hooves sliding on the floor. She can't punch properly distanced like this.

Her eyes roll towards the raptor. Oh why didn't she learn his name? She needs to call it out. She gags... her tongue almost lolling as she gasp, "p-please help..."

Lews lifts his head slowly, his arms shaking. His chest burns, the fire against his ribs screaming as the air rushes back into his lungs. He coughs, struggling breaths. Some of the fluid coming out from his lips is warm and on the pillow he can see through his haze that the liquid comes out black.

The scent comes to his nose and he finds himself shaking. Blood. That's what it is. Blood. She'd been trying to kill him! The bitch! She'd...

Something slams into the bed, rocking him back against the pillow, the wet blood sticking to his scales. He hears hooves struggling on the floor, the gasp of prey whispering. Whispering "p-please help..." A short whinny follows after.

Lews raises his head slowly, looking towards the blue pegasus. She is choking Fluttershy, her tongue already rolling out.

His body tenses, a shiver running through his spine. He is weak and he can't do much but..

He reacts on impulse, his teeth snapping down on Ophelia's forearm. Almost immediately he lets go, but so does she.

Fluttershy slumps against the bed, coughing and gagging like he did once before. He remains quiet, looking at her pale form under the dim light of the moon.

"You bucking fool," he hears a dark voice whisper. He jerks his head up, looking towards the blue pegasus. Her head is tilted down, tears streaming down her cheeks, shining brightly against the moon's light. Why? Why is she crying? He remains quiet, just staring.

"You bucking fool," she says, her arms tensing. He tenses himself, readying for the attack that is sure to come, but it is so fast he has no time to react. Something is suddenly rocking against his left cheek and he finds himself flung from the bed, airborne. The sensation last only a moment as he crashes against the back wall with a thud.

His body feels like it is crushed, he hears part of the wall give, something to his side cracking. Then there is just blackness as his jaw slams against the floor. He only stares weakly, trying to push back the dark, as he sees a pair of blue hooves coming towards him slowly. His claw raises and falls back with a slap, eye shutting, giving way to the full darkness. "Ophelia..." he whispers.

She comes towards him slowly, each step heavy, the tears streaming down her cheeks and hitting the floor wetly. She'd believed him different, believed he'd not be as dumb as her brother... as any man. Her hoof reaches down towards him when a voice yells "Stop!"

She turns slowly, regarding Fluttershy as the pony gasp, blood spilling from between breaths. Ophelia stares, her mind going back to a memory.

The legs plop to the floor with a sick thud as her blade goes through the boy's shoulder, making him scream. Ophelia looks back, a grin twisting her lips. "I told you if you rush the healing they won't hold."

The blonde haired woman with her bob grits her teeth, growling at Ophelia. But she goes back to trying to fix her legs, attach them to her body. An offensive warrior, and so very weak, she thinks. How laughable.

"Such a good girl," she says, blocking one of the boy's inept attacks without a thought. "But don't be too slow or you know... this boy will lose his head. And he sure needs your help."

She smiles, chuckling softly, watching the boy panting before her. Twelve years old or somewhere there abouts she'd guess. He is gasping, his chest heaving with each breath he takes. She smiles. The agony of these humans and the trash of awakened beings. How she loved to make them squirm. Time to make the bitch squirm a little more by cutting her boy toy.

He raises his sword, giving a war cry and cuts it short as her blade passes under his arm through his side. He grits his teeth, biting back tears. "That must hurt," she says. "Then... how about this?"

The blade cuts again, ripping through his leg. The blood sprays, and she waits for his scream to come. It doesn't. Her smile slips and she slashes again. "There?" she says. He simply looks at her with a cold hateful gaze but though the blood sprays the air, he does not cry. "How about there?" she says getting irritated. "Or there?"

Slash after slash, with the boy tensing, not even trying to attack any longer. But not a scream, not a cry, not the trickle of a word. It's pissing her off. How can this stupid human who is a wisp of a man, resist this? How can he be trying to spit on her like this? She knows. Let's bait Clare again, she thinks.

"Look at him, holding back his tears even though he's been cut so very much. Even though it hurts very much," she says, mocking Clare.

"That's enough!" the boy yells, the blade slashing just before her face. Admirable she thinks. She'd almost forgotten he could attack.

He is breathing heavily now, holding the blade that must be getting heavier in his grip and looks towards her. She can see his grip shaking. "That's enough," he says, the blood dripping down his face from a cut she gave him on the forehead. "You're just trying to blow Clare's concentration. You call those attacks? I can barely feel them! Come on and give me something real!"

The determination, the fire in his eyes. So much like that man, that man she'd seen earlier, before that monster, that bitch, stuck her hand into his side and tore out his guts. It just pisses her off so much. All her anger boils in her, all that fire and rage.

But there is none of that now, she thinks, looking back into reality and the blonde mare who is almost begging her to stop. "Stop it," says the mare, gripping her hoof in her own. "He didn't do anything wrong! He was just trying to comfort me! We didn't do anything, I swear!"

"Liar," she says quietly.

"What?" says the blonde pony, eyes going wide.

Ophelia back hands her with her hoof, hearing the crack of bone and flesh as the mare falls backwards. She slides back and hits the opposing end of the room with a thud. "Worthless bitch," she hisses.

She walks over to Razor, looking down at him. His body is slumped on the floor, breathing coming out in a labored force. She leans down her hoof towards him, memories of a smile and warm eyes in her vision.

"Stop!" she hears Fluttershy yell. "Don't hurt him!"

Gritting her teeth, she grips the raptor by the nape of his neck and slings him over her shoulder. His weight is light to her, no more then her sword, if that. She steps around the blonde pony who is trying to get up and walks out the room, out the open space of the kitchen. She hears the pony stumble, trying to follow them.

She spreads her wings, gathering the wind beneath them and springs into the air with her catch. "Waaaaaiiiittt!" she hears the blonde mare yell from below. But she does not listen, instead hearing the wind rushing over her ears and mane, brushing over her skin. She looks at the reptile's calm face, his eye fluttering and breathing very shallow as she flies high into the night sky.

"Bastard..." she whispers, feeling the tears still flowing from her eyes. Just like her brother and that worthless boy... They are all the same. Men.


	10. Chapter 10

Lews mumbles in his sleep, the pain in his jaw quite severe. He sees her in his sleep, her eyes glowing a golden color, her hoof rocking against his jaw, sending him skyward and then slamming him into the back wall with tremendous force. He'd heard something crack, something give way. He thinks he'd heard something pop in his back and then he fell to the floor.

In his dream Ophelia walks up to him and grabs his neck, her hooves clasping around his throat, squeezing tight. He's gasping, begging for air. But there is only anger in her, anger and that sadness, her tears running down her cheeks. "O-ophelia..." he gasp, feeling those hooves on his neck, the bones starting to grate. "St-stop..."

He wakens suddenly, something holding his jaws open forcibly, a pain in his gums and he snaps, violently, viciously. The small bar of metal holding his jaws open flips as it is thrown off balance, flying past the head of a doctor who suddenly falls away, landing unceremoniously on his flank. He snaps again and there is a click in his mouth.

Click?

He bites at his lips, opening his jaws, probing with his claw tips. There is something off by the right tooth three spaces up, like something underneath the crown.

The colt stands up on shaky legs, pulling off the plastic gloves and tosses them on the floor. "Well that is certainly some kind of thank you," says the colt, glaring at him as he takes the mask off his face.

"What did you do?" says Lews, still feeling his tooth his tongue. But the whole lower jaw feels tingly, a strange feeling running through it. It feels... numb.

"Oh that," says the doctor, sighing and running a hoof through his spiky brown mane. "That my friend is the Novocain working through your system. I needed to set your tooth back in place since it was loose. And your girlfriend suggested I add a chip so you can walk around on Cloud's Dale without falling through the floor."

"Girlfriend?" he snarls, his voice coming out in a hiss. He slips off the bench where he'd been laying and turns towards the blue pegasus who leans against the wall, staring at nothing. "Her?" he hisses. "That mare is nothing but trouble!"

"What?" she says, turning to him. "You prefer blonde little whores?"

"At least they don't clop me in the mouth when they see me!"

"What did you expect when I saw you in bed with her?!" Ophelia yells back, stomping towards him.

"You could've let me explain!" he snarls back, snapping his teeth in front of her. His temper is boiling and he is snarling, drool and spittle coming over his chin. His eyes burn, a blood lust haze clouding over them. A low rumbling growl slides forth from his throat.

"That will be enough," says the doctor, a sharp point jabbing down into the back of Lews' neck. Lews turns, snapping, but the plunger has already pumped the fluid in to his system and he feels himself becoming drowsy. He turns towards Ophelia, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

"You..." he hisses. "Bitch..."

And with this he slumps over, unconscious, thinking only how strange it is the floor feels so soft.

Ophelia glares at the reptile on the floor, breathing raggedly and considers running her hoof through his snout. Her body is trembling and she is biting back tears.

"Well," says the doctor, suddenly exasperated. "I thought you told me he wasn't dangerous. What was that all about?"

She looks towards the doctor and feels her blood calm. He is a colt with a light colored brown pelt and even darker brown mane that is almost reddish in color. He has an hour glass on his rump and claims to be "The Doctor," and there being few in Clouds' Dale she'd brought Razor to him, but maybe she shouldn't have bothered. The fool lizard seems bent on betraying her and she even spent money on a device to keep him from falling through the clouds. But that bitch... that yellow pelted pink whored bitch...

"Ophelia?" says a serious, yet soft voice. She turns towards the doctor, looking at his concerned face. "He is dangerous. You need to get him out of here. Away from other pegasus and even other ponies in general."

"Don't tell me what to do," she hisses, her voice low and unsteady. Her heart is racing, pumping hard against her chest. She clenches invisible fingers on her hooves and snarls again. "Don't. Tell. Me. What. To. Do." The colt steps back, some fear in his smell filling her nose now. She can feel the energy in her flaring, her mane and wings blowing with it. "The bitch," she hisses. "That bitch. That..."

"He's funny looking!" says a simple yet loud voice over to her right.

Ophelia turns as the doctor yells, "Ditzy! Don't touch him! He's dangerous!"

"No he's not, silly!" says a gray pegusus with a messy yellow mane, her smile a wide grin across her face. Kneeling down, she goes back to poking the raptor in the side. He hisses, curling away from her, his breath coming in slow, low gasp.

There is a frown that crosses the pegasus' face as she looks the reptile over. "What is he?" she ask, looking towards the doctor. "He doesn't look like no pony I've ever seen."

"That's because he's not," says the doctor. "He's..."

"Of course he's not!" says the pegasus, "even I can see that silly!"

She goes back to poking him resulting in him hissing more. Ophelia simply stares, watching.

The doctor walks up to the pony, putting a hoof on her shoulders. "You shouldn't do that, you'll disturb his sleep."

"Okay," says the pony in a chirping voice. "But what is he?"

"Deinonychus," says the doctor, running a hoof through his mane nervously as he looks down at the reptile.

"Deinono what?" ask the gray pony, her eyes moving in opposite directions in her confusion. Derpy, thinks Ophelia. Of course! She should have known. No other ponies act so... foolish, in general. She crosses her arms and simply glares, but the pony just ignores her. "What's a dinonono... nono... uh..."

Ophelia slaps her hoof against her face. This pony truly is irritating just to listen to. "Deinonychus," continues the doctor, as if he hadn't even noticed Derpy's blunder. "Terrible claw. A raptor."

"A raptor?" says Derpy. "But I thought birds flew? And he doesn't look like a bird to me."

"He's a dinosaur," says the doctor, helping the gray pegasus up and moving her away from the reptile. "And a pack hunter at that. So the question is..." he says, turning to Ophelia, "where is the rest of the pack?"

"Pack hunter?" says Ophelia, whispering to herself. She hadn't considered this. There were supposed to be more of him? She looks down at the reptile, curled on the floor, his lips twitching and tail flicking back and forth.

She shrugs her shoulders and walks over to the reptile, picking him up almost tenderly in her arms and puts him back on the bench. "Don't know what you're talking about," says Ophelia. "He was alone when I found him."

"That's unfortunate," says the doctor. "It means he's either a wild rogue, as I suspect given his temper..."

"He's not a rogue," snaps Ophelia. "He's too weak for that. He just burns out once in awhile and snaps."

"Ah," says the doctor, rubbing a hoof under his chin. "I guess then he was probably abandoned."

"Abandoned?" says Derpy, looking sadly from the doctor to the sleeping reptile. Ophelia too turns towards him, something new gripping her inner emotions.

"Abandoned?" she asks. "What makes you say that?"

"If he was alone and you can handle him... a lone pony..." says the doctor, "then more then likely he's the runt of the litter. It happens frequently. The larger members of the pack pushing the smaller..."

"You can go doctor," says Ophelia walking back towards Razor and running a hoof down his neck, caressing it softly. The raptor twist in his sleep, flinching a moment and then relaxing, his breathing slowing and becoming more like a purring sound.

"But Ophelia..." says the doctor, worry coating his voice.

"Just go!" she snaps. "I can handle this."

"I see. Very well then," says the colt. "Be aware, I'll be reporting this to Celestia and the royal guards. If there is one raptor there are more."

"Whatever," says Ophelia, turning back to the raptor in question and returning to stroking his smooth skin. She can feel him tremble and keeps her hoof still until the trembling stops. She can hear the doctor grunting something behind her with Derpy following behind in her high pitched voice, asking a barrage of questions. The door to the room slams shut and the echo of its bang rings through the empty room, leaving Ophelia alone in her thoughts.

"A runt huh?" she whispers, a small chuckle escaping her throat. She wipes a tear from her cheek and smiles. "Whatever," she says, leaning down towards him. "You're my runt now," she whispers against his ear. "Remember that."

She sees a tremor run through his body, feels it under her hoof and then it stops, his heart rate speeding up some. She smiles and leans back, adjusting some of the clouds for a seat and sits back, watching her reptile.

"A runt," she whispers. "Go figure. Just my luck to get the runt of the litter."

In the woods a pink reptile glances down at the torn painting on the floor, the grass and dirt already fowling up the image. The painting on it has already become distorted and unrecognizable. Why would he be interested in such things that break so easily, thinks Ulna, leaning down and sniffing the drying paints.

She leans back up, her crest rising and falling. He hasn't returned. It's been two days and still he hasn't come back.

It shouldn't matter. But Lews is no hunter, no tracker. She...

A twig snaps to her right and she turns quickly, her growl turning into a soft sigh, head inclined forward and bowing. Before her is a large female, orange in coloration with purplish forearms and legs, her long feather mane flaring briefly. She looks towards the west where Lews originally headed off to and sighs. She is DayDreamer, the raptor clan leader and Lews' mother. She must be worried, thinks Ulna.

She raises her head and looks towards the direction her pack leader is looking towards. To the west is Equestria. Land of ponies. Dangerous to raptors. And also where Lews disappeared to two days ago.

"Go after him," says DayDreamer.

"What?" says Ulna, turning back towards her pack leader.

The large raptor glares at her, her eyes a deep amber. She snarls and looks back towards the west, the land of ponies. "Go after him. Bring my son back Ulna."

She bows her head low, claws hidden beneath her jaws and shuts her eyes. "Yes your majesty," she says. "I'll bring him back."

She trots off towards the west and sighs. "Lews," she hisses, "What have you gotten me into?"


	11. Chapter 11

The clip clop clip clop of Fluttershy's hooves start to grate on Rarity's nerves. But the white unicorn eyes Fluttershy as calmly as she can, gritting her teeth while grinding them against one another as her blonde friend prances about back and forth, getting supplies for her bag.

"I need some scarves, he'll be cold.. And... oh my..."

"Please dear," says Rarity, "all your pacing is giving me a headache. You friend... uh... what was his name?"

"Golly," says Fluttershy, her face paling red. "I don't know. Ophelia was calling him "Razor" but I'm not sure what he's really called. I wonder if that's his name or not. I..."

Rarity comes up before her, placing a hoof over her friend's mouth. "Please Fluttershy, your... Razor... is probably alright. He's just..."

"Oh no," says the pegasus, pushing Rarity's hoof from her mouth. "I'm sure he's not alright. How he slammed into the wall... You should have seen it! He..."

"It's okay," says Rarity. "That brute of a mare will get what's coming to her. You'll see. You should really leave this to the authorities or..."

"Oh no," says her friend, fluttering past and grabbing the satchel from the seat with her teeth. "I couldn't do that," she says, swinging the bag onto her shoulder. "He's a friend and a ... unique one at that."

"Yes..." says Rarity, not feeling at all sure about this and dabbing Fluttershy's right eye with some ice.

"Ow!" yelps the yellow mare, putting a hoof to her eye.

"Really," says Rarity, putting her hoofs to her hips. "How could you let that mare do this to you? Giving you a black eye! You should tell Rainbow Dash and.."

"No," says Fluttershy, closing her eyes and holding Rarity's hoof sternly. "No. I can't do that. He's my responsibility and it's my fault he's in this position. You understand?"

The yellow pony looks at her with such imploring eyes, big and watery and Rarity sighs, conceding defeat. Trying to bite back tears, she gives her friend a hug. "Just be careful. I don't want that brute laying another hoof on you."

Fluttershy returns the hug, pressing Rarity tightly. "I will," she whispers. "Don't worry."

With this she opens the door that makes a horrid screeching noise. Biting her lip, she says "I'll fix that when I get back."

"Don't worry about it," says Rarity, "just bring back your friend. I'm very excited to meet a colt who has my Fluttershy's eye."

"Yeah..." says Fluttershy, looking away. "About that. He's not a colt."

"What?" says Rarity, gasping, her eyes bulging. "Then... what is he?"

"Bye!" says her friend, suddenly zipping into the clouds well out of sight from Rarity's gaze.

"But... if he's not a colt... what could he be?" she says, worry taking over her feeling as she bites down on her hoof, now very agitated. "She can't be... oh my... Fluttershy... you never told me... Oh my..."

She rubs her chin and thinks, "but she said "he" so who or what can it be?"

Fluttershy's wings beat at the air rapidly, the wind ripping through her mane. She blinks away tears as the air tears at her still sensitive eye, gritting her teeth and not even noticing how fast she's actually going. She appears a yellow blur on the ground and the only thoughts passing through her mind are, I hope he's alright. This is all my fault. I should have been stronger and stood up to her. Fluttershy... you doormatt!

On the ground floor a predator rises from the grasses, eying the pony suspiciously. The pony is moving at incredible speed looking for all the world like a blur of yellow in the sky. Ulna narrows her eyes against the glare of the bright sun and lowers her snout back to the earth.

Lews had been here she thinks. The musk of his odor is still strong along with an odor of fear and ... sex? She pushes back and leans back in, absorbing more of the scent.

There is definitely raptor scent mixed in the earth here. A sexual arousal of phermones released into the thin air but there is also the scent of a mare's sex here. Her own heat wetting the ground thickly. And no female raptor?

She grunts, the images coming to her mind feeling uncomfortable. Even if he hasn't had success with her he wouldn't stoop to that level... would he?...

Her lips curls into a snarl, the thought twisting her insides. She raises her head to the winds watching the grasses blow. The scent heads west, deeper into Ponyville. Her eyes narrowed she trots in that direction, keeping Lews' scent close to her.

She'd get to the bottom of this, one way or another!


	12. Chapter 12

Ophelia feels herself becoming angry, her fur rising on her skin and her emotions turning red hot. "Why the hell are you shaking so much?" She hisses. "You're shaking worse then before, damn it!"

Her raptor, Razor, he started shaking an hour ago and now the shivering and chattering don't stop. His body in his sleep state is starting to shake violently, curled up into a fetal position. She feels a tear running down her eye and growls. "Are you really so afraid of me," she says. "God damn it! I..." she says, placing a hoof on his neck, intending to press down.

The door to her right opens with a sudden bang and she leaps out of her seat. "Yo! Ophelia! Aren't you entering the contest? I..."

The blue pegasus with the vibrant mane looks to her right and sees the raptor shivering violently. "Hey... what's wrong with him?" says Rainbow Dash, walking over on her two hind legs towards the raptor.

"He's just being a pussy," says Ophelia with a soft voice, a bitter note slipping into her tone.

"I don't think so..." says Rainbow Dash, placing a hoof on his chest which rises and falls with ragged breaths. "Ophelia," says Rainbow, worry filling her voice. "This guy isn't scared. He's freezing!"

"What?" says Ophelia, snapping out of her thoughts.

Dash rushes to the closet, pulling out several sheets. "Oh gosh. Oh gosh. I hope we aren't too late."

"What's going on?" says Ophelia walking up to Dash who is tossing items across the room frantically. A blanket is suddenly tossed at her face, which she pushes away from her body.

"What..."

"Here!" says Dash, shoving another blanket at Ophelia's hooves. "Take these and start rubbing his chest and flank!"

"Why?" says Ophelia, the bitterness slipping back into her voice. Rainbow Dash lifts her head slowly, looking towards the blue mare who stares with dark eyes.

"Don't you get it," says Dash incredulously, "he's entering hypothermia. He's a reptile! He can't stand the cold properly!"

"What?" says Ophelia, her bitterness slipping.

"He's dying, damn it! If you don't stop standing around he's gonna go into shock! Now hurry up and start getting him warm!" Rainbow Dash turns away, going back to tossing around medical instruments in her search for more sheets.

Ophelia looks down at the sheets in her hooves, that anger welling up inside her again, but not for the same reason. She turns away and walks back towards Razor, pressing the sheets down over his body and begins to rub. How could she have been so stupid to not realize it? He's a lizard and he's freezing. How could she have not noticed?

"I'm so stupid," she whispers quietly, the tears flowing openly from her eyes. "So bucking stupid."

The reptile grunts sleepily but she can feel the shivering start to slow as his body begins to circulate more warmth. Rainbow Dash is soon there, rubbing more blankets on his flanks. Ophelia watches the other pony, who is rubbing vigorously, trying to get the blood flowing into the reptile. "How did you know," she asks.

"What?" says Dash continuing to work on the reptile's body.

"How did you know," Ophelia repeats more loudly.

"Tank," says Dash, rubbing more slowly. "I brought him to Clouds' Dale once. This started happening to him too. I rushed him over to Fluttershy when I thought something was wrong... but..." Her voice goes hollow and cuts short. Ophelia can see the tears running down Dash's cheeks and shakes her head.

"You were too late, weren't you?"

"Yeah..." says Dash. "At least we aren't too late here."

Ophelia looks towards her reptile and can see the shivering has almost abated, his breathing more normal.

"You should probably lie next to him. Give him that added warmth from your body."

"What?" says Ophelia incredulously.

Dash rolls her eyes. "It's not like it's new to you. I know already you were bucking with him."

"I..." says Ophelia, her voice catching in her throat. Had it really been that obvious?

"Look," says Dash, "it's just to keep him warm. Stay here and watch him while I get something he can wear and something hot to drink."

"Yeah... I guess..." says Ophelia, moving the sheets and sliding her body towards the reptile. As if drawn, he rolls towards her, resting his snout beneath her chin, snorting loudly as he sucks in her scent and pulls her closer with his claws. His body is frigid, but not nearly so as it was earlier.

"See? All better," says Dash.

"Oh shut up," Ophelia growls.

The rainbow maned pony smiles and turns away. As she heads to the door she stops and turns slowly. "Hey, why did you bring him here anyways?" she says quietly. "I thought you were staying over at Fluttershy's?"

"Things change," says Ophelia quietly.

The blue pegasus waits for more of a reply but when nothing is forthcoming she shakes her head and nods. "Whatever," and the door closes with a bang, the sound echoing in the still room. Razor snorts, a soft ripple running over his skin before he calms, his arms and legs squeezing Ophelia tighter.

"Such a stupid lizard," Ophelia whispers to him, allowing herself to wrap her hooves around his body. "So bucking stupid..."

A tear slides down her cheek and she kisses the reptile lightly on the scalp, running her hoof over it softly. "So stupid..." she whispers quietly.

Fluttershy burst through the clouds, the cold moisture sticking to her feathers and fur. But she does not worry about this, instead rushing around frantically grabbing the first pegasus she sees, a brown colt with a dark mane and turns him around, nearly pressing her snout to his.

"Have you seen him?!" she says.

"Seen who?" says the pegasus with a wide eyed look.

"Seen him!"

"Who?" says the pegasus trying to loosen her grip on him and push away from her.

"HIM!" she says, her grip tightening painfully on the pegasus' arms, hooves biting into his skin.

"I don't know who you're talking about!" the pony screams, his voice becoming high pitched as he becomes frantic trying to escape the grip of the blonde pony. But Fluttershy holds him too tightly for him to find a way to loosen himself properly, instead falling on the floor, Fluttershy on top of him.

"Oh! You have to help me! You must!" she says, her heart pounding, eyes wide and wings fluttering.

"Help! She's gone crazy!" says the pony, his wings beating violently. "Get her off me!"

"But... but..." says Fluttershy, her voice starting to rise in pitch, becoming frantic. "Why won't anypony help me?!" she screams.

She feels a hoof on her shoulder and turns, a friendly smile on the face of a blue mare with a rainbow mane.

"Rainbow Dash!" she says, releasing the colt and hugging her friend tight who screams as coffee suddenly falls on her flank, its steaming contents burning her skin. "Oh! Sorry!" says the blonde pony, hooves against her mouth, looking worriedly at the brown stain on the blue pegasus' flank.

The pegasus touches her flank, wincing. "Kkk... Don't... worry about it," she says. "It'll only sting for an hour or so... I think..."

"I'm sorry," says Fluttershy, arms crossing behind her back, back hoof kicking up a puff from the floor. "I wasn't thinking straight."

"So what else is new," says Dash.

"What?" she says.

"Never mind," says the pegasus, resting both hooves on her friend's shoulders. "So what got you up here in such a state. Your wings don't generally buzz like that unless you're really freaked out."

"Oh my gosh!" says Fluttershy. "I almost forgot!" Her head is twitching back and forth and the blue pegasus rolls her eyes. "That friend we had yesterday... the um... dragon?"

"The raptor?" says Rainbow Dash, cocking an eyebrow.

"Yes, him!" says Fluttershy, gripping her friend hard with her hooves. "He was dragonnapped yesterday! It was so horrible! I..."

"Guess that explains why he was at the doctor's," Dash mutters under her breath.

"What?!" says Fluttershy, her eyes going wide. "That's horrible!"

"Yeah, Ophelia brought him in and..."

"That's even worse!" the blonde pony says. "I have to help him!" She disappears from the presence of her friend, her wings beating as rapidly as her heart, muscle thumping against her chest with a whisper of hoping it's not too late repeated quickly.

Rainbow stares open mouthed then shrugs her shoulders. "Girl has a kink in her head is what," she mutters to herself as she turns around and scratches her mane. "Now where could the clothe's department be?"

She turns and flies to her right while the blonde pony races through the doors of the doctor's office. No pony is there at the front desk and she rushes through the doors looking for her friend. "Hello?" she says, opening each door in tandem answered back by distressed ponies who waken from slumber or simply stare in shock. The doors slam back just as quickly as she whispers sorry.

At last the final door opens and she sees "his" shape, and worse for her, she sees "her" shape as well. The blue pegasus with yellow eyes, who opens them slowly. She is running her hoof up and down the reptile's scalp and smiles darkly.

The pony's eyes narrow and she pushes aside the sheet, intending to come off the table when the raptor pulls her back in, pressing his face deep into her chest. "Oh come on!" she growls. The raptor simply pulls her in closer, rubbing his snout against her fur, his nails scratching along her back.

Ophelia growls bitterly and pulls her foot back in, pulling the sheet around herself, hissing under her breath.

"I..." Fluttershy whispers quietly.

"What are you waiting for?" growls Ophelia, her eyes glowing. "An invitation? Get out!"

Fluttershy slams the door shut rushing past a brown colt who looks in her direction. But she ignores him, slamming the doors to the front office of the hospital with a thud and leans back against the wall, tears streaming down her face. She'd come to save him, but instead he was in bed with "her." Her, the one who had beaten him to begin with, but he was cuddling her like a lover.

Fluttershy slides down against the wall, tears streaming down her eyes and wraps her face in her hooves, tears coming bitterly.


	13. Chapter 13

He feels her warm hips above him, gyrating with his thrust, each accentuating his own pulse with her. She does not whinny nor neigh, just rough grunts issuing from her parted lips, her wings spread wide to balance herself on his hips. Lews does not think much on this, on the fact that he is having sexual relations with a pony. And not just with any pony, but "that" pony. Ophelia.

He does not think on this, rolling over her, placing himself on top, thrusting into her and leaning towards her lips. He kisses her roughly, feeling her body, her warm velvet fur and the heat emanating from it.

She grips his body, running her hooves over it. She presses her body against his, mingling in unison with his. It does not feel strange for him, though it should, being with the one who violated him.

So why doesn't it?

Ophelia's eyes open wide, her eyes glowing a pure white and the reptile feels himself drawn in. He blinks, trying to look past what is a glaring light that makes anything difficult to see. Something that is searing into his eyes, burning his pupils. "Nooooo!" he hears a voice shriek, one that is familiar and aggressive.

"Ophelia?" he asks, lowering his arm, trying to look towards the two figures before him.

One is female, her body lithe and long with her mammeries a lot bigger then on any creature in Equestria he has known. Her limbs are thin and long, fingers similar to his on their ends. Her legs are long and muscled but equally thin, holding her balance so precariously. Her face is the oddest of all. Squished looking but long with supple lips that are a bright pink and a nose that sticks out over the snout like a point, two pointed ears jutting out from her head. But what seems familiar... her hair is twisted in a long braid like...

"What the hell are you doing to me?!" the creature screams, and Lews' eyes widen as he realizes "who" the creature actually is. "Ophelia?" he whispers, the word not so much a question anymore as simple fact. It's Ophelia like in all the dreams he's been having of late. Another image, another mirage.

"Am I dreaming?" he whispers.

"What you are seeing is not a dream but what has happened before," a voice says behind him. He turns rapidly, beholding a mare much larger then most of the ponies in Equestria, her wings spread wide, head tilted up with the horn at the end shining, flowing multicolored mane waving in the empty air. The ruler over the empire of Equestria, the Empress, Celestia.

"Why..." he whispers, his heart beating rapidly in his chest. "What?..." His voice is catching, sweat dripping down his eyes.

"Watch," she says and he does as he is told, turning towards the scene before him.

"Your world is full of hatred and violence, greed and corruption," says the Celestia in the vision, her voice cold and hard. "You yourself are full of a malice, taking joy in causing destruction and misery."

"You bitch!" Ophelia screams and Lews' eyes widen, watching as the slender fingers melt together, twisting and crunching, turning into hooves. He can hear the fullness of her body crunching, cracking. Organs rearranging themselves or changing. Wings, naked of flesh, split from her back, the skin and flesh beginning to grow over it.

Lews stares, horrified, but unable to look away. The creature's skin grows a sickly hue of blue and begins to grow brighter, fur starting to sprout where there is none. Her nose melts into her face, the mouth bulging out as the eyes recede and grow larger, her hair becoming a far lighter color.

"Oh Celestia..." he whispers.

"Yes," says Celestia next to him. "Many of the denizens of Equestria were made this way. From those who have passed and faded in other worlds."

"But..."

"Just watch," she says.

He turns slowly, keeping an eye on Celestia and wondering if he himself is like this. He notices from the corner of his eye a smile crossing her lips. A light and dark shine mingling in her eye, and jerks fully away from her vision. What she is... it is starting to terrify him far more the Ophelia.

Ophelia for her own part now stands on four hooves, panting, blood spilling from lips and nose and ears. "Yes," says the old Celestia, trotting up to the heaving, snarling mare. "The change is a bit... gruesome, but you will get used to your new body."

"Fuck you!" growls Ophelia. "Change me back!"

Celestia trots over to the newly formed mare who stomps her feet on the floor, pawing at it, head bowed with teeth bared, wings flared wide. "You are a fighter, aren't you?" says Celestia, fully unconcerned.

"You bitch!" says Ophelia, simply staring but not moving forward or attacking.

Celestia smiles, tilting her head, her horn touching Ophelia's forehead, making the mare's eyes widen, her eyes shining brightly, losing their color, mouth falling agape.

"When you learn what love and friendship is, when you learn humanity, then and only then will I consider returning you to your former state before you died. Only then. And only if you wish it."

And the vision fades from Lews' sight, a flash spreading over his sight in a brief instant and then gone. Only clouds and mist remain. That and the current Celestia next to him. "What was that?!" he snarls, fear overriding his normal precautions.

"The past," Celestia says without concern.

"But..." he says, licking his lips. "What does it have to do with me?"

She turns, a smile on her lips with that glint in her eyes that makes him step back. "Because you may be the love she needs. The one she is looking for to regain her humanity."

"Empress," he says. "But I... she... I'm a raptor! She's a pony!"

The alicorn walks towards him, backing him to an unseen corner, making him fall back on his hind legs where she straddles him, her face inches from his own. "So tell me sweet reptile, what would bother you more? That I am a pony or that I am not her? Answer that and you'll have your answer."

"But..." he says.

"Only your doubts get in the way Lews. Look past these and you can succeed where others fail." He looks away from her, looking into the distance, not looking at anything but thinking on what she says. "Our time here is done Lews. It's time to waken."

"What are..." Her horn leans down towards his head and suddenly he is gone.

He wakens with a jolt, breathing raggedly, his pupils dilating. He is breathing hard like this for a few minutes before a mare bitterly says, "Is there a reason you have your hand pressing down on my chest or is there something else you want?"

He turns towards her then, regarding the mare who stares at him with a scathing look. Her eyes are a sharp gold, different from the silver he remembers in the dream. He turns away, rubbing his head, shaking himself.

"No," he says. "It's nothing. I'm sorry."

She snorts. "Whatever."

Throwing the sheets off she stretches and Lews observes her, glancing down at her flank and her wings spread wide, the blue shimmering with the plumes of clouds here, her golden mane seeming to catch the brilliance of the light. His eyes widen, feeling something in himself and he presses his hands against his hips, trying not to think on that. He is attracted to her. A raptor attracted to a pony. Of all the absurdities. And not any pony - but this one!

He smiles and turns towards her, watching and hearing with a wince as she cracks her neck twice then smacks her lips together. I really couldn't have chosen a more unruly pony, could I, he thinks.

Her wings tilt, she turning to regard him, still balanced on two hooves rather then four. He thinks how familiar to his vision that is and perhaps not a mere coincidence.

"What are you looking at?" she says. "You have this far off look every time you look at me."

"I ... nothing!" he says, turning away.

"Like hell it's nothing! You're going to tell me what's going through that thick skull of yours or..."

The doors slam open, banging against the walls, a blue pegasus with multi colored mane barging inside, heading straight towards them, her eyes narrowed slits. "You have something explaining to do Ophelia!" the pony barks.

Ophelia has turned towards the other pony, her own body tensing already. It would seem there are other concerns they need to address first. Lews rolls his eyes and sighs before throwing off the sheets and bounding off onto the floor.

The white mare looks on, her eyes serious and stern, changing from their purple hue to a blue. Her mane changes from its multicolored transparency to one of a strong pink, vibrant yellows and purples. Her pelt changes to a softer pastel pink along with her pelt and mane. They shine radiantly and she looks to the sky, considering. "Lews..." says the princess, " please be strong. Make the right choice and let love guide you." And with these words the pony disappears from the mist.


	14. Chapter 14

"I've got something to say to you!" says the blue pegasus, her nostrils flaring, violet eyes and even deeper shade of purple as her wings flare. As Rainbow Dash stomps towards them Ophelia catches a glimpse of the blonde pegasus, hiding timidly behind the door, just barely peeking out her head to look at them.

"You!" growls Ophelia, her heart thundering, the blood rushing through her body, quickly heating. She feels a cold energy wash over her, a deep seated anger. She feels her sight seeming to cloud in red and flexes her hoof in feeling to this.

"Oh no you don't," says Dash, shoving her back, making her stumble on her hooves.

"Did you just push me," says Ophelia, partially surprised, but having that surprise quickly evaporating into anger.

"You bet I did!" says the blue pony. "No one, and I mean no one hurts Fluttershy!"

"I told her to keep her head out of my bucking business! Is that too much to ask?!"

"No..." says Dash stuttering. "But you didn't need to scream at her! You know how she is!"

"Oh boo hoo! She's making a move on my man!"

"Your man?" says Dash, anger rippling from her lips. "Look. Ever since that lizard showed up here everything has gone to..."

The snap of teeth is sudden, Dash's reaction equally so as she jumps back, her eyes widening and wings flaring, from fear this time rather then anger.

"Enough!" snarls the raptor. "Ever since I've come into this situation I have only heard bickering and squabbling from you mares! If I were in my right mind I would have made the both of you lunch by now, and be dragging your bleeding corpses back to my pack!"

"Then why don't you?" says Ophelia.

"What?!" he says, the anger and adrenaline he had only a second ago fading like a breath across a candle. But it's there, she can see it. See that anger and rage just simmering under the surface, wanting an outlet. Wanting to be let out.

She sidles over to him, her hips swaying side to side provocatively and she notices his eyes are riveted. Not by hunger, but by lust. A grin spreads across her lips, her eyes taking an extra gleam. Got you, she thinks.

She leans towards him, running her hoof over his chest, sliding it over his neck and leans her head down towards him. "I'm right here," she says teasingly. "Why don't you open that mouth and take a bite?"

The other two are staring wide eyed. The shy mare having come in as Razor had snapped the air between her and Dash. And she stares with bulging eyes, her mouth agape, much like Dash, unlike she herself. No. She hadn't even flinched when he'd snapped at her. It had made her smile actually, reminded her of something... something she can't quite remember. But she wants to... remember what that is... And he's the key. She only need unlock it.

"So..." she says again. "Why don't you? Take a bite, that is?"

He pushes away, stumbling back against the other two ponies, his own eyes wide as saucers. "You... you're insane! I snap at you..." he says, pointing a quivering finger and she lunges suddenly, snapping her teeth inches from his snout, making him fall back against the other two in a heap.

They struggle at first, a mixed heap of feather, fur and scales. Then she places her hoof down on Razor's chest, pressing down on him. The trio looks at her, their fear evident. All anger, all resentment, all that power... gone from them. All of them. Like it never existed.

She chuckles and shakes her head. "How boring. And here I thought you'd be entertaining. Silly me."

She shakes her feathers and steps away from them, letting them get back on their feet. "You..." she hears Razor say. "You're not a pony, are you?" The fear, it is unmistakable. It makes her laugh, a tingling noise that sounds loudly in the small room.

"A pony?" she says, grinning darkly, her blood rising. "I don't know," she says. "What do you think I am?"

"I don't... I don't know," he says.

"Well then," she says, gripping the handle to the door. "We'll find out then, won't we?"

The three are staring still, mouths agape, the sounds of their hearts sounding a hundred fold. She shakes her head and sighs. "Amateurs," she whispers, and slams the door on them, thinking for a moment.

Why? Why would he say that? What am I? She looks towards the ceiling trying to look beyond it and shakes her head, grunting in displeasure, slapping her hoof against the wall as she walks on, something disagreeing with her internally. But she can't put a hoof on what, and that only works to make her more angry.

The trio sit in the darkened room, mouths agape, hearts pounding in their ears. Fluttershy swallows, biting her lower lip, the old fears from the past seeming to reassert themselves. That blue mare, with her fur standing on end, energy seeming to burn from her very hooves, and her eyes... they'd been a bright amber that glowed even in the darkness. It makes Fluttershy shiver and she hugs herself, rubbing her hooves against her shoulders. This feeling...

"What the buck was that about?!" says Rainbow Dash, suddenly yelling. "Did you see her? What the buck! And the pink energy spiral thing? It looked like it was from a Daring Doo Adventure! I mean..."

"Shut the buck up!" they hear Razor yell. There is a low growl issuing from his throat, reverberating in the room. "I don't need more conundrums for the day."

He looks towards the door, his eyes narrowing, they shining a bright jade. A predatory gaze. Fluttershy rubs her shoulders, feeling the power of it when his gaze suddenly turns on her. "Don't eat me!" she yells, covering her face with her hooves, quivering on the floor.

She hears the reptile grunt, a low growl coming from his throat. "And this is the pony who snapped my leg back in place and threatened me? Hard to believe." He is quiet for a time, no sounds coming from any of them. "Many things are hard to believe these days..."

"No buck?" says Dash. "I mean what the hell is going on with Ophelia? Has she always been like that..."

But Razor isn't listening, instead moving to the door, his tail bobbing up and down, stance lowered. Predatory.

"Hello?" says Dash, clearly annoyed. "Where are you going?"

"After her," he says. "I need to know what she is."

With this he slams the door himself, disappearing in a huff beyond the rooms.

"Well that's just swell," says Rainbow Dash, crossing her arms. "Looks like those two are made for each other."

"I'm sorry Dash," says Fluttershy, gripping Dash's hooves, looking at her wide eyes and gaping mouth. "But I have to go."

"Hey wait!" says Dash, but Flutter is already beating her wings rapidly, slamming through the doors and out the halls in search of the raptor who has already disappeared. "Razor?!" she calls. "Razor?!" And she zooms around hall to hall, in search of her reptilian friend.

Lews cocks his head, listening to the pegasus calling out his name. He shrugs. He can deal with her later. Right now he...

As he turns the corner he bumps into an armor plated chest. "Hey!" says a hard voice. "Watch where you're going!"

He shakes his head, snarling as he backs up. A spear is suddenly pointing at his chest, the armored pony looking at him with a glare. "Why don't you watch it?" Lews says, his irritation showing.

"Why you-" says the pony.

"Hey," says the other, his eyes widening. "What is he?"

The first pony looks, finally observing him and shakes his head. "Some weird dragon, maybe?"

As Lews is about to retort a feminine voice says, "Our guest is right in front of us. Don't speak of him as if he were an object."

Lews looks up at the pony who spoke, she standing a foot taller then her guards, her hair shimmering with vibrant colors, purple eyes alit and smiling down on him. "You?!" he says. "What are you doing here? Checking up on me?"

Her smile turns into a frown, eyes becoming serious. "Checking up on you? Whatever do you mean? This is the first time I see..." she glances down at him, as if seeing him for the first time, truly. "Something like you," she finishes.

"Don't play coy with me," he snarls. "You sent me the vision just now."

"Vision?" she says, her eyes narrowing. "About what?"

"About what?!" he says exasperated. "About Ophelia being transformed from whatever she is into a pony! Losing her memory..." He pauses thinking on it, on how some things Ophelia did seemed confusing, even to her. "I have to find her. Excuse me."

He turns to leave when his snout smacks into something hard. He rubs his nose, looking at the wall, except there is none. He feels it with his hand, what should be open space but feels a pulsing energy beneath it. "I think I want you to come with me sir," says Celestia in a none too friendly tone. "You seem to know more then I think is wise and I want to know how come."

He turns, looking at her with wide eyes. "But it was you who sent me the vision," he says. "You already knew. Didn't you?"

"Contrary to what you may believe," she says. "I have done nothing of the sort, and I want to know who has." At this she stomps her hoof on the floor and nods to the guards.

"Escort our guest to the palace. He'll be needed for questioning."

The guards surround him, hooves on his arms. "If you'll follow us," they say, their tone hard and commanding.

He lowers his head. "As if I had a choice."

"No," says Celestia. "You don't."

He follows close behind her, guards surrounding him on either side and shakes his head. So it wasn't her, he thinks. And now he is being drawn away because she thinks he knows who it was. But it also means... the vision isn't an illusion. There's something behind it all. His eyes narrow, a grunt issuing behind his lips. There's something more here then she is saying.

Fluttershy watches from a corner, eye bulging. She turns, slamming her back against the wall, her heart thundering. "The princess... and Razor. Oh no... why does she want Razor?"

She puts a hoof to her face, the sweat dripping down the sides of her head. She puts it down, trying to calm herself. "I'm going to need help. I'm going to need... Ophelia.."

She turns, looking down the hall and sighs. Ophelia is the one who can help in clearing Razor's name for whatever reason the princess may want him for, because she's the one who has been with him the most. Hopefully she can clear it.

Nodding her head and balling her determination up into a ball, she turns, beating her wings quickly as she races down the halls of Clouds' Dale in search of the angry equine. Hopefully she can make her see reason. Hopefully...


	15. Chapter 15

The chains weigh heavily on his wrist and Lews raises his hands, scratching at his upper hands which chafe from the metal biting into his skin. He looks around, looking towards the corner at the small fire lighted in the torch with the roof leaking water from a crack, a small pool forming at his feet. Lifting from his small cot, he bends down and laps at the water, taking some of the cool feel, letting it run down his throat and clear his senses.

Though he had tried to explain himself to Celestia she had been in no mood to hear him out and the guards had prodded him forward. He wonders how long he'll have to stay here?

He hisses lightly, "should have kept my big mouth shut."

"Maybe you should have," says a guard, his face hard and stiff, eyes black coals in his face. "The Princess is here to see you."

"Celestia?" he says. "So... she deigns to see me now after having jailed me for several hours? How thoughtful."

"No..." says a strong voice. He turns, watching as another being as tall as Celestia with her similar form walks towards him, her hooves echoing on the hard floor. Her mane flows, he able to see the stars within it, her pelt almost merging with the darkness making him think he sees outside. He glances behind him to make sure it truly is day outside the window and back at the pony. Her looks are disconcerting.

"Wh-who are you?"

"We art thy Princess, Luna." She looks at him coyly. "Truly, you do not recognize us, your god incarnate?"

"What are you blathering about? I have no gods!"

She turns to the guard and nods. "Leave us! We would speak with this one alone." Her voice booms in the empty halls and Lews backs away, fear overriding his senses. She stares at him, a smile on her lips and motions with her horn, the lock on the gate falling away. The door swings open and she bends down, tucking in her wings and spreading them anew inside the cell. He stares, her form filling the small room he is confined in, encasing it in night. Gods or not, her presence is intimidating. He backs away, crawling towards a corner of the cot, pushing against the back wall.

She smiles. "We intimidate you?" She chuckles lightly. "And we art not in our visage of old, as Nightmare Moon!"

"Nightmare moon?" he says, remembering tales of a pony made of the shadow itself who would gobble up little chicks newly born from their eggs if they were disobedient, or weak...

He backs away and she shakes her head. "Tut. Tut. This will not do. And these accommodations are truly dreadful. Here, let us make this more pleasant."

She bends her head down, her head lightly touching the locks around his wrist, they falling away in a heap against the floor. "There. Better, is it not?"

He rubs his wrist, marked red by the manacles and nods. "Yes. But..."

He notes her looking around the room, shaking her head. "No. This will not do. Not for a guest or one of our subjects of old. Come now..." she turns, wrapping a wing around him, bringing him closer.

"Hey! What are you..."

"Let us leave this dungeon."

And with a flash she and he disappear, he reappearing in a room that is white with bright lights and soft carpeting below. He falls with a woompf onto the bed behind him. He gets up on the bed, turning circles, looking around. The room is fixed with bright chandeliers, with crystals shining about them, the bed itself under his feet is of satin and silk, a silk drape his snout pushes under feeling luxuriously soft. The smells of incense filter into his nostrils and he calms, curling into a small ball.

"Better? No?"

"Why bring us..." He catches himself going into the plural and shakes his head. "I mean why bring me... here? Why treat me like this? What do you hope to gain?"

Nightmare Moon levitates an apple from the tray, though she looks nothing like what he'd remembered her to be. The apple floats before her and she takes a bite, watching him, swallows and continues to stare. He backs away in the bed, curling back against the pillows.

"We still cause you fear we see."

He nods quietly.

"Well don't be. We heard from our sister that thou hast knowledge of how you came to be?"

"Wait," he says, lifting his head. "What do you mean how "I" came to be? I only saw Ophelia... I... wait... do you mean..." He shakes his head, his claws gripping his skull. "No... You mean... I'm like her?"

Nightmare moon nods, resting herself on her haunches. "Yes. Well..." She puts a hoof under her chin, thinking thoughtfully. "It depends on what you saw. Tell us then, friend raptor, what you did see. Yes?"

"I..." he considers keeping himself shut off, but glancing at Nightmare Moon with the edges of her eyes hardening he decides otherwise. "I saw... I saw Ophelia... I think it was her. She had a lithe long body. Very thin and walking on her hind legs, like me, but ... different. Wrong. Her face was milky white and squished, like a rat who had his face run over by a hoof."

Nightmare Moon nods. "Go on."

"I saw her changing... changing into... what I see her now. And that... Celestia changed her."

"Was there more thou saw?"

"No," he says, shaking his head.

"So you saw nothing of Ophelia's former life, or other ponies?"

"No. What's this..."

She raises a hoof and he shuts his mouth. "Did our sister... in your vision... say anything?"

"Something about Ophelia regaining her humanity by learning about love and friendship."

"Ah yes. The ways of love and friendship. An old working of my sister as she places high esteem on the values associated with friendship. And Ophelia..." She turns away, looking towards the sky outside. "Well Ophelia has had issue in absorbing what it is to be a pony. Or dropping her old life for that matter."

"You were aware the royal guard were on their way to pick her up this same day when they picked you up instead?"

"Why?" he says.

"For execution."

His mouth hangs open, eyes bulging. "You see," she says. "Your friend... Ophelia... she has had great trouble acclimating herself to our people. Well... her people. And frankly we have grown weary."

"And this is why you'd execute her?! What kind of madness..."

"Silence!" her voice booms, making the raptor scrabble backwards on the bed.

Nightmare moon stomps her hoof and shakes her head. "No. That is not why. It is because of the disappearance of the ponies in the vicinity."

His mouth opens and shuts, his eyes darting away from her. "We are not off our mark, are we?"

He lifts his head, opening his mouth as if to say something and then thinks better of it, snapping it shut again. Execution, he thinks, remembering the blue mare with her shimmering blonde mane. And he'd been starting to have feelings for her.

"You have feelings for her, do you not?"

"Wait...how did..."

"When our sister left you she said that you were trying to find her. These would not be passing sentiments, would they?" She takes a secondary bite from her apple, observing him. He opens his mouth, shuts it, lowering his head.

"I don't know. Everything has moved so fast... I don't know what I feel."

"And your vision said nothing about your place with her?"

"It said something about me being the "key" to her love, whatever that means."

"I thought so. Are you interested in this mare's well being?"

He shuts his mouth and nods. "Yes. I think so."

"Hmm..." the mare mutters. Standing she lets the apple fall from her grasp. "We shall speak to our sister about this matter. We think there is something... amiss... here. Other workings pulling the strings. We shall speak to our sister regarding these affairs."

"Sure." Looking up at her he asks, "why are you the one who questions me and not her? What's at stake for you? The vision had nothing to do with you. I haven't ever even seen you! I mean..."

"But you have seen me before child."

"I have..."

She leans forward, very close to his snout. "Because while the ponies of Ponyville and over Equestria as a whole are Celestia's subjects, you and yours are "MY" subjects."

"What?! But..."

She leans away, the tip of her horn flashing. "We must speak to our sister regarding the matter. Stay in this room and do not leave no matter what! The guards will come when we summon you. Until then... adieu ..." she smiles, a quirk of her lips. "Lews."

His eyes bulge and the mare disappears in a flash of light, not a spec remaining of her. Lews backs away, shivering and gripping the sheet on the bed, wrapping it tightly around himself. What did she mean, "her" subject, he thinks. And how did she know his name?

He curls in a ball, shivering, looking at the spot where Nightmare Moon disappeared, wishing he could hide under a stone somewhere and never be seen again.

Ulna pushes against the door, smelling Razor's scent on it. The door creaks open noisily, making her cringe. She bunts her head against the door, pushing it, slamming it really and looks around, searching. She dips her nose to the ground, snarling. Snorting, she lifts her head.

Lews' scent is everywhere here. Everywhere, and drenched heavily throughout the house. He's been lazing about here, she thinks, picking up even the smell of pegasi blood on the floor. She twist her lips into a cruel smile. So he did manage to kill, she thinks. But why not return then?

She sniffs the air and another more fragrant smell catches her nose. One stronger then blood but just hidden by it. It is a certain scent, one thick of musk and... something else... that attracts her. She makes her way to the back room, her claws clicking lightly on the floor. Pushing the door at the end of the living room she enters the bedroom.

It is here that the scent is strongest. She walks towards the bed, cringing. No, she thinks. It can't be. He wouldn't defile himself that way.

She pushes her snout into the sheet, taking thick whiffs of the smells that come off. Two ponies, only one raptor. One of the ponies in heat, the other approaching it and one raptor... in heat. And there are smells of ... what has occurred. She can even see where the sheets haven't been properly washed, if at all. She presses a claw and pulls back, cringing. It is still wet even.

Her lips curl back, a low growl reverberating across her lips. He has defiled himself. With inferior prey matter at that. Not even a rival clan, but... ponies! Equine meat meant for eating and he has been... copulating! Daydreamer is a fool to put such pride in him, she thinks. And to think she'd harbored some feelings for him. Her claws clench in anger, her heart beating rapidly...

"What do you mean darling?" says a voice with a type of accent to it. Ulna jerks her head up, cocking her head to the side and picking up on the sounds of the conversation. "This... Razor..." the voice continues. "He was taken by the Princess?"

"Yeah..." says another mare. "Celestia apparently took him. Fluttershy went to get it straightened out after telling Ophelia."

"That couldn't have been well," says the one pony. Ulna glances up from the window in the bedroom, glancing down at the two ponies walking by. One is of a white complexion with a purple mane curled in some strange style while the blue one with multi colored mane listens to the white, her wings twitching.

"I know this bore," says the white one. "Ophelia. She probably stampeded and rushed off to confront the Princess. I heard from Fluttershy she's the one who brought the reptile, though she didn't treat him well."

"I'll say," says the blue one. "Smashed the table to bits and rushed off in a huff. Fluttershy was beating her wings to catch up! I don't know but I think there might be something between the three."

"Oh my..." says the white one, rubbing her hooves together. "I hope Fluttershy knows to keep her hooves out of this."

"I don't know..." says the blue one. "They were both excited. I couldn't catch up to her. Fluttershy I mean... fastest I ever saw her go." The blue one is silent and Ulna decides to slip out then, keeping her body crouched low to the ground.

He has gotten himself in trouble with the ruler of Equestria. The pony ruler. If it is him...

She pauses, considering, and hisses savagely. She'll have to verify it. Grunting, she slips into the grass, moving further inside as the ponies make a circle around the house, still deep in their conversation. Ulna crouches low, watching and listening...

At least she knows which have defiled him, their names and their scents. Ophelia and Fluttershy... Her lips curl, saliva dripping down them. She'll tear out their throats for this affront. She swears it.

The hooved fist beats at the door, banging loudly. "Open the door, by command of Princess Luna!" yells the guard.

Lews walks back and forth, agitated. The guards outside have been beating on the door for the past ten minutes and still Lews hasn't unlocked it. His skin still crawls from Nightmare Moon's speech to him. No. Luna's speech to him. But she is Nightmare Moon! He grips his skull, claws digging into his skin. Shaking his head he snarls and hisses, the banging continuing on the other side.

Lews snarls, hearing the door knob turn. He grabs at the knob, unsure of how to block the turning, seeing the halo around it. "He's trying to hold the lock!" he hears the pony yell. "Open it anyways!" he hears, and despite his efforts, scrabbling at the lock, it turns, clicking back and shifting the bolt in the door. He backs away just as the door slam open, wood chips splintering.

Lews falls back, turning, spears pointed at him. "By order of Princess Luna and..."

Lews jerks his head up, seeing the pony shimmer, his own eyes going wide as he and another guard close to him seem to be gripped in the magical energy. Lews looks at his hands, seeing how they become transparent and hisses silently. There is a pop, the energy being blown out of him then another pop following it, where his feet hit the floor with a thump as his stomach comes forward with them.

The guard, his mustache quivering, holds the spear again at Lews. "B-by order of Princess Luna..."

"That will be enough!" Luna's voice booms. "We have brought him here now. You may depart kind sir."

"Bu-but..." says the guard, turning, his eyes large and wide, mouth agape.

"We asked you to bring him over fifteen minutes ago," says Luna. "What cost you?"

"H-he.." the pony gulps and Lews smiles. At least they had this discomfort.

"He locked the door!" yells the second pony, pointing a quivering hoof at him. "He..."

"Silence!" says Princess Luna, directing a hard gaze at him. "Be gone. Now."

Both ponies bow, their heads inclined to the floor and turn away, but not before giving Lews a deathly glare.

Luna sips loudly from her cup while Celestia, her colorful mane waving, stares at him darkly. "My sister has been telling me quite a bit about you," she says, her voice deep and hard. Lews swallows, the wad of spit passing down his throat with difficulty. "We have much to talk about, you and we," says Celestia. "Much."

Lews stares, his own heart thumping, feet away from the doors but frozen to the spot. And now he wishes he could go back to the dungeons compared to being here, with both alicorns, their contrasting colors spread before him and both with hard eyes looking down on him. "Yes," says Luna rising, her wings spreading. "So let us begin..."


	16. Chapter 16

The chains hang heavily on his wrist, but for Lews they are almost light as he stares from one princess, her mane shining with the hues of the rainbow but those violet eyes boring holes into him and then at the second princess, who sips placidly at her cup. But even there, how Nightmare Moon regards him, it sends a shiver down his spine. His heart is thumping wildly and there is sweat beading over his skin and brow. His tail swings back and forth, feet scraping at the floor restlessly.

"Please do stop that," says Nightmare Moon in an almost bored voice. "The royal carpets cost a fortune."

"Sorry," says Lews, but impulsively continues to scratch at the carpet.

"You had best get on with what you are to say sister. Our carpets will not last long against clawed feet."

Celestia growls, making Lews stand cold, eyes wide and breath catching. She stares at him, her wings flaring wide and curls them back, only slightly. "My sister has told me of your "dream" lizard," she snarls.

"His name is Lews," says Nightmare Moon. "Do keep in mind the name of our subjects."

Celestia glares at Nightmare Moon, she in turn regards her sister placidly. "Your subjects. Mine are the ponies in this realm."

"And part of why you have not left this case to myself alone sister. Now be calm and speak. He will listen." He is shivering from listening, teeth clattering, though the two do not seem to notice.

Celestia sighs. "Alright, as you know by now we gather beings from other worlds and bring them here to Equestria, as one beasts or another. I take the ponies, Luna takes..." She hesitates on the words, twisting them on her tongue. "The others," she finishes sourly.

Nightmare Moon... no... Luna, nods her head in approval.

"But to be frank," says Celestia, her eyes narrowed. "I'm only interested in how you became aware of this. Nopony and certainly no lizard is supposed to know of that particular secret. So how you came to know... well... we have suspicions. As is... you will confirm them with your lady friend Ophelia."

"She is not my lady..." he begins to snarl when there is a loud banging at the door.

Lews jerks his head up, eyes narrowing, taking in the scent. Heavy in pine and... blood. A shiver runs down his spine as there is another loud thud. The guards are yelling and neighing at one another on the other side, voices muffled by the thick door.

Lews swallows, his head bowing low, taking a few steps backwards. She's here, and her scent is heavy with malice.

"Keep her away from the door! You can't enter! Keep her away! My god!"

"What is happening," says Luna, her voice growing to near hysteria. But even before Celestia says the name, he knows. "Ophelia..." he whispers.

The sounds are unmistakable. Bone and armor break, whinnying screams heard as bodies are slammed against the door. There is a loud crack ripping through the front of the door and Lews backs away further. "Oh no..." he whispers.

Then there is a crash. A body flies overhead, slamming into the floor, body skidding to stop at Celestia's feet. The guard's body is splayed on the floor, twitching, a severe dent in the armor where the shoulder has caved in from a horrendous blow, the imprint of a hoof on that armor.

"No!" a guard screams shrilly. "Under orders of Princess Celestia! You can not..."

There is the grating sound of a crack, bone resounding as a jaw is dislocated and the guard pony falls before Lews, his helmet rolling off his head, cheek swollen and purple. A trickle of blood falls from his lips but his chest rises and falls. He is alive. Lucky him.

"You're more trouble then you're worth," says a hard voice, filled with a sexual allure and Lews finds himself backing further towards the two angry princesses, their anger and power nothing to the scent he is smelling from the pony before him. She watches him with twin gold eyes, regarding him from the shadows.

"Are you scared," says Ophelia, walking out of the darkness, the shadows sliding over her blue fur like a mask, spreading behind her wings. She walks on her back hooves, striding forward as if it were her natural way of moving, her eyes locked on his, wings spread. "You should be," she says, leaning towards him, only inches away. "I'll show you what happens when boys ruin my bucking... hey!"

Lews stares wide eyed as Ophelia is lifted into the air and slammed against the wall, a green energy holding her tightly.

"That," says Celestia, her voice booming in the halls. "Will be quite enough!"

Lews stares at Celestia, her wings spread wide, eyes aglow as Ophelia bucks violently against her restraints, screaming profanities. "You..." growls Celestia. "You endanger my realm, have murdered ponies in cold blood and now assault my men. I will execute you where you stand!"

"Sister stop!" says Luna. Lews stares seeing Ophelia's windpipe being pressed against her neck by the green glow and she looks towards him, her eyes shining.

"Sorry," she says. "Was fun while it lasted..." There is a smile on her lips as her throat is squeezed and tears leak down Lews' eyes. True. She is violent. She is insolent and abusive. But she... wanted him. Has tried to protect him, even now. And all he can do is stand and watch her die? Something inside him snaps, a rage that screams to be let out.

He turns towards Celestia and runs, his legs pumping quickly, muscles pumping adrenaline. "Sister!" Luna shrieks as Lews leaps, his legs propelling him into the air, clawed hand pushing forward, claws before Celestia's eyes.. And then... he stops...

His talons are only an inch away from Celestia's wide eyes, her mouth agape. He hears the thud behind him and a sudden beating of feathers that halts followed by a struggling scream as Ophelia beats against the force holding her. Lews remains calm, feeling the tickle of the energy encircling him, barely able to move even his mouth. But slowly he is pulled back from Celestia who still stares open mouthed, her scent heavy with fear, heart thumping loudly in his ears. She smells of prey. For a moment, the briefest of seconds, all he wanted was to rip out her throat and see her blood well fully on the floor, drenching it in red.

The wards are released from his body, lifted slowly while Ophelia's mouth is silenced. "You will hold yourself where you are," says Luna stiffly. He nods, only inclining his head towards the princess. On Celestia his eyes remain.

"Sister," says Luna. "Are you well?"

"You... BASTARD!" Celestia booms, her eyes alight, floor rumbling. "How Da..."

"You tried to kill his mate. It is to be expected!" Luna roars back.

"I don't..."

"Mate?!" both say at once, Ophelia's own resistance to the wards stopping suddenly as she hears those words.

"Yes," says Luna, regarding both with a calm voice. "Mate." She walks towards both, her hooves clopping on the floor. She stands before Ophelia, regarding her with serene eyes. "I believe my sister chose poorly when she changed you into a pony. You... you do not possess the disposition of a pony. But a predator... One of mine."

"I..." says Ophelia, tongue tied for a moment, then turns, her eyes narrowing, face heating crimson. "Buck you!"

"Buck me indeed," says Luna. "You will learn proper respect, in time." She walks back towards Celestia, giving her a gentle nudge, she still glaring but the heat dying away.

"How do you do that?" asks Celestia.

"I am a god of predators and things that go bump in the night, my sister. These two are predators. I know how to deal with theirs as theirs is mine."

Celestia sighs, sitting suddenly as if extremely weary. "I'm starting to understand why you said I should have left this to you."

"As we were saying," says Luna as Lews stares from the glaring Ophelia to the calm Luna, to the resigned but resentful Celestia. She looks defeated, he thinks. The queen of the sun and ruler of all pony kind. Why?

"Lews," says Luna. "Pay attention."

"Lews?" says Ophelia. "I thought his name was Razor."

"You never knew his name," says Luna flatly.

"She never asked," says Lews. "Doesn't matter. Razor works just as well."

Ophelia snorts, crossing her arms. "Ass."

He sighs, his shoulders slumping, legs trembling. Luna sips her drink, smacking her lips and puts the cup down. "As we were saying, since this involves you as well Ophelia, we best get started. It would seem the vision you had Lews, perhaps has to do with your connection with your," she puts a hoof to her mouth. "Betrothed."

"We're not getting married!" says Ophelia, her words suddenly cutting like daggers. "I don't even.."

"You are now," says Celestia darkly.

"What?!" says Ophelia, shrieking. "You can't make me!"

"It's either that or the chopping block."

Ophelia stares, mouth agape. "I know about what you've been doing Ophelia," says Celestia. "You make it easier by coming to us. So what is your decision?"

Ophelia stares and shakes her head. She hangs her head low, wings folding back on her back, and she lets out a long sigh. She stares at him, a hint of gold shimmering in her eyes.

"Fine. I'll take the chopping block."

"What?!" both Luna and Lews say, standing suddenly.

"Relax," says Ophelia. "How bad can marriage be after all?"

"But you just said..." says Lews, then measures her words. There is a mischievous grin on her lips, that shimmer in her eyes shining brighter. Lews swallows. "Oh."

And he is uncertain wether he should offer his own head towards the chopping block now. The look she gives him sends a shiver down his spine and Luna's words ring in his ears, "she is a predator." He swallows. The look in her eyes is just that. One of a predator.


	17. Chapter 17

Ophelia listens to Luna and Celestia instruct her on her new role as wife and help mate, or whatever, to the little lizard dragon thing next to her, who sits shivering, staring at her. She is only half listening to Luna, or the white laced bitch next to her who keeps nagging about murders. Murders she hasn't committed. She'd remember if she had.

She sips at the cup of tea she stole from Luna's side as she was released and simply stares at the white mare who has red in her eyes. Unhealthy, she thinks. Bitch will get a heart attack early like that.

"And then there was Broly who disappeared just last week! And it's well known he had a thing for you," Celestia harps on.

Ophelia throws the mug at Celestia's head, the mare just ducking to the side, pewter shattering with hot liquid. Ophelia growls, "Did you even know that dimwit? The bucking creep was stalking me, trying to put the moves on me!"

"If it was truly that bad," says Celestia, eyes already tired. "You should have spoken to myself or the guard."

Ophelia begins to laugh. "You... or the guard? What were you gonna' do about an undisciplined lout who complains about another lout? YOU? You would have just sent me out and told me to deal with it!"

"As unscrupulous as she is, sister," says Luna, "she has a point. This is likely what you would have done."

"That is not the point sister. She killed him. You admit it, don't you? That you murdered Broly in cold blood?"

"So what?" says Ophelia, her own eyes narrowed. She stares at the raptor, who still stares at her with mouth half agape. "He had it coming."

She punches him in the arm. "Come on. Speak up! You were part of this too!"

"You were," says Celestia, her dark glare turning black. "Oh do tell young reptile, did you enjoy slitting Broly's neck?"

Ophelia sees the raptor snarl, his lips curling back. She crosses her hooves and smiles. There's always some button to push somewhere, even on shriveled things like her lizard.

He'd only been half listening to the accusations and instructions the two sisters had been saying, but when they brought this "Broly" into the conversation and Ophelia reminds him of "who" he is, Lews snaps.

"Buck you!" Lews snaps. "I guess it would have been better if she'd let him smash my brains in Fluttershy's little hovel?"

"Fluttershy?" says the princess darkly. "What's she... no. It doesn't matter. You attacked him and that is all there is to it. You are a predator who was hunting ponies and you bit more then you could chew."

"Bit more then I could chew?! That's an understatement! The damn thing was three times my size!" he yells, bouncing onto the balls of his feet. But the movement is sudden and he slips, landing on his hip anew.

"Yeaaahhh!" he screams, bouncing on one foot. He'd landed on his bad side, the dislocated leg still swollen from its injury.

"You are injured," says Luna, standing and going towards him.

"No thanks to that brute," says Lews, lips curling back from his teeth.

"Watch your tongue," says Celestia. "I can still control your..."

"Enough sister," says Luna. "Both these we have agreed have fallen under my command, yes? And they will soon be beyond the realm. You should contact Princess Cadance about the impending arrival of our guest."

"She's a murderess," says Celestia. "They both are."

"Yes," says Luna, titling her horn towards Lews' leg. "They all are. They're predators. They don't eat hay and gemstones like most subjects in your kingdom. You have become too used to those trapped inside the confines of "civilization." You lose focus of how the "others" live within the Ever Free Forest and beyond."

"I..."

"Enough sister. This argument goes long enough and you have no familiarity with hunters. Be gone and take the men with you. I can handle this on my own."

"But I..."

"I will brook no argument sister!" says Luna, her voice booming. "Be Gone!"

Celestia lowers her hoof, her head lowering. "Fine," she says. "But if I hear about one more disa..."

"There won't be. Not without our approval."

Celestia grits her teeth and disappears in a flash of light, the guards on the floor disappearing with her. "What a bitch," says Ophelia, moving her hoof towards the cup she had and smiling upon realizing she's smashed it already. Luna smiles. "You have much to work on in ways of civility pegasi."

"Bah," says Ophelia, crossing her hooves behind her back.

Luna leans her horn towards Lews' leg, an energy like a warm blanket going over it, numbing the pain and lifting it away by layers from his flesh. He moves his leg, shifting it up and down before pulling away.

"Thank you," he says, regarding the princess with new respect. "Th-thank you," he says. "But why...?"

"I am your god," says Luna. "I need to watch over my subjects. Raptors..." and she turns to Ophelia as she says the next part. "And pony alike. Now..." she says, taking her seat at her cushion once more. "What did happen with Broly?"

"It doesn't matter," says Ophelia. "I handled it."

"Lews?"

"He attacked me," he says. "Throttled me, reminded me of someone... I... didn't get along with. I fought back. He threw me against the wall. Dislocated my leg. I thought I was through. He didn't see her. I didn't see her. Then his arm was gone. And then... he was gone."

"So she killed him?"

"Damned straight I did!" says Ophelia.

"Do you think you needed to?" says Luna, hoof under chin.

"Look, the guy wouldn't take no for an answer. He thought we were an item. I told him no. Gods! I told him no enough times you could fill a book with it. And then when I find a guy I do like, he tries to kill him. What am I supposed to do?"

Luna is silent. Considering. She rubs her chin and then says, "What about Lightning Dust and the others?"

Ophelia stares at the mare dumb founded. "I am trying to help you Ophelia. But you must tell me what happened in each case so I can properly absolve you of it. Now what happened to Lightning Dust?"

"I don't know," says Ophelia shrugging. "I've fought and wounded a few ponies. But honestly... Broly was the first one. Something snapped and then... well... I just.. Moved. I beat ponies to shit all the time. But this.."

"I thought you'd killed before," says Lews, genuinely confused.

Ophelia chuckles. "Yeah. Manticores, hydras, exterminations of dangerous animals. But not any ponies. I'd remember if I did."

"But then..." says Lews, "who..."

Her gaze turns to him, a gold shimmer in her eyes. "Oh boy, you already know who."

"What?" he says.

She taps him on the nose, flicking it with her hoof. "Think boy. I know you're not dumb. After all... I don't own a chainsaw." Her grin splits her face wide and Lews' own eyes go wide.

"Then it was..."

The doors slam open, her chest heaving, breathless, mane wet over her forehead the smell of perspiration thick on her fur. She lifts her head, green eyes vibrant and strong.

"Fluttershy..." he whispers, the name sinking in like bile in his throat. "Fluttershy..."


	18. Chapter 18

Fluttershy is breathing rapidly, her chest heaving, sweat drenching down her forehead. When she'd heard that Razor had been taken to the dungeons she went there first, even going so far as to punch out a guard and threaten another one when she couldn't find him in his cell. And then when she'd heard about Princess Celestia having a conference with him...

Her worries had felt ever greater. Celestia is not known for her tolerance or capacity with woodland creatures. All Celestia's own are terrified of her or anypony for that matter. But...

Even before she'd slammed through them the doors had been ajar, like broken, swinging on hinges. She'd thought maybe there'd been a struggle, a fight. Razor lying in a pool of his own blood.

What she finds instead is Ophelia staring with a grin, seated comfily, with Razor looking at her worriedly and Luna, the princess of darkness and all things that go bump in the night...

She sees a large grin, teeth pointed and sharp, large yellow eyes staring at her. It's that place, like back then...

She shuts her eyes, shaking her head. "No Fluttershy," she whispers. "It's all in your head. All in your head."

"Lady Fluttershy," she hears Luna say loudly. "We need converse with you regarding matters of serious import. It has come to our attention that Ophelia may not be responsible for the disappearances in Ponyville."

"Oh no no..." says Fluttershy, her shyness taking hold of her. She kicks lamely at the floor, looking away. "She's not..."

"Then who is?" Luna's voice booms.

Fluttershy backs away, shivering. "No... I..."

"Fluttershy," Luna says darkly. "It is said "You" are responsible for those disappearances!"

"What...?! I... I..." she says, looking towards Razor for some help or assurance. Razor simply looks away.

"You have a fridge full of pony flesh," he says. " Meat from before the big stallion. What have you been doing Fluttershy?"

Her mouth quivers, eyes wide.

"Fluttershy!" Luna's voice booms. "You have been accused of murder in the first degree! How do you plead!"

Fluttershy is shaking, looking from one pony to the next, trying to avert her eyes from Luna, her heart thundering. The sweat is hot and sticky on her skin and she is breathing more rapidly now. She puts her hooves to her head, her eyes blinking rapidly.

In her skull she sees the large purple creature, grabbing her. She screaming for help from the other warrior, who simply sat there, sat there placidly, watching as the monster took her arm and began to pull, slowly ripping the flesh and bone away. She'd screamed, begged for mercy. Pleaded for her team mate to come. And the woman just watched. Watched as she was torn piece by piece.

"Yes," she hisses, her hooves lowering from her head. "Yes, I did it!" The tears run down her eyes, but she doesn't bother to wipe them. "Lightning Dust! Gilda! Fumble! I killed them! They were all just like... like..." She turns to look at Ophelia, her eyes narrowing. She points her hoof angrily at the mare. "Just like her!"

Ophelia's mouth falls open. "Liars! Cheaters! Scum! They'd just leave you to die when the time came. Just like... like that bitch..."

There is a crack across her face, a sharp pain snapping her into reality. She stares wide eyed, mouth shaking. She lifts a hoof slowly to her cheek, rubbing the raw end. Ophelia stares at her, hooves crossed across her chest. "You really think I'd leave you like that Fluttershy," she hisses. "Really?"

"I... I..." she says, her words stumbling over one another as her anger begins to recede.

"Well I wouldn't," growls Ophelia. "I don't know what's going on in your head right now, but you've got me wrong! I wouldn't abandon you. Never!"

Fluttershy's eyes grow wide, she can see tears forming at the corners of Ophelia's vision. The mare wipes at her tears angrily. "I thought we were friends!" Ophelia growls. "Were you just going to kill me too?"

"Yes," says Fluttershy quietly. "I would have. Because you're just like her!"

She can still see her, with that smile, hair curled long at her shoulders, bright silver eyes, simply watching, smiling. That dimple accentuating the smile, making it all the darker. And as she looks at Ophelia, that is all she can see, that woman... smiling...

"You would have left me, just like her."

There is another crack across her cheek, softer then the last even in its anger. She doesn't bother to look at her, simply listening to the quick beat of her wings, the doors slamming behind her.

"Ophelia wait!" Razor says, feet stomping up towards her.

Fluttershy grabs him by the arm, her grip hard. "You should leave her," she says. "She's a bad person."

The reptile yanks his arm away from her and snorts, hot air blowing against Fluttershy's cheek. "Only bad person here right now is you. Besides... that's my wife you're talking about! Bad or not, she's still my responsibility!"

"W-wife!?" Fluttershy says, her mouth agape, eyes growing large as the raptor rushes past her, running through the double doors. She turns to Luna, gripping her collar. "He can't be serious! There must be a mistake! He..."

"It would seem the Princess has decreed it. Their betrothal."

"There's a mistake!" Fluttershy screams. "She has to be wrong! Celestia..."

"It wasn't Celestia who decreed it. She is no happier then you. It is Cadance."

"What...?" says Fluttershy, her hooves falling away.

"You know full well what that means."

Fluttershy grits her teeth, trying to bite back her tears. Cadance is the Princess of love and harmony. She makes ponies fall in love. Her insight into the hearts of ponies is unparalleled. She has never been wrong. Those couples she has created have remained together till the end of their lives, or so legend goes...

"She has to... she..." Fluttershy whispers, her words failing her.

"Come Fluttershy. We need speak with my sister. Something of your memories has caused this homicidal rage in you and it must be rectified."

"Yes..." says Fluttershy, rubbing her arm. "Yes, I ... I suppose it does."

She walks forlornly behind Luna as the doors open before them stretching into the empty dark hall. But she sees none of it. Only the darkness opening like a gaping hole wishing to swallow her up.

He'd been so kind to her. She was hoping... how could it be... how could it be that he is foresworn to Ophelia? She sobs, bitter tears running down her cheeks. How could she have lost... to that mare?

Lews finds her in a corner of the halls, behind the armors, sobbing quietly, piteously. Her frame is shaking, head bent away from him, wings ruffling. He walks towards her cautiously, taking each step slowly. "Ophelia?" he whispers, coming near her.

She continues sobbing, ignoring him so he asks her name again.

"Go away!" she screams, her eyes glowing an amber briefly. He turns around quickly, turning to run, not noticing how close he is to the armors. In his haste to escape, his foot catches between an armor's legs, claw finding its way between the crevices of metal. The tug becomes a jerk as he tries to rip it away, stumbling forward and then taking the armor with him, along with two others. He crashes into the floor in a piled mess of twisting metal and scale.

He is scrabbling on the floor, a helmet having fallen on him, fitting improperly and snaps his jaws in fear. His claws scrape and twist, legs and arms and even tail tangling in a mass of metal and plates. He feels something tugging at him, gripping at the loose metal. "No! Don't hurt me!" he shrieks, trying to strike at the force and hitting it with a clang.

Something cracks him across his jaw, the gong like noise of metal on his skull ringing loudly. Stunned he has no time to react as he is grabbed from the skin at the nape of his neck and sat unceremoniously on his buttocks. Metal is quickly being tugged off his body and tossed aside, banging loudly as it skids across the floor.

"So hopeless," he hears her whisper. "Like a damned runt in dragon's skin," the voice hisses, then sniffs. "Just like that idiot."

There is a pause for a moment followed by a sniffling. His own heart thunders and he can hear her shuddering. His mouth is dry and he licks his lips, unsure of his actions. "Ophelia?" he whispers after a time.

The sobbing stops, the tugging on his appendages resuming. Muscle and sinew soon free of cumbersome metal. Clang clang! the metal sounds as it hits against the floor, all the while Ophelia whispering softly. "She was just a little filly when I met her. Young and quiet. Not much of a racer or flier for that matter. But Rd recommended her and I guess the runt grew on me. Even moved in together. Had each other's backs. I was covering her ass when she first started this shit."

The metal tears away from his skull with a shrieking noise as part remains curled around his neck. It twist off with a snap and she looks at him sourly, her eyes still bright from unshed tears. "You knew?" he asks.

"Yeah..." she whispers. "First one was Lightning Dust. She'd been harassing Fluttershy and while Rainbow Dash talked her down I took her out back and beat the living hell out of her. Broke three of her ribs and her left foreleg. She wasn't going anywhere. Then..."

"Well, I came by a few days later to the cottage, and there was Fluttershy with Dust' body on the living room floor, blood pooling. It was all so ... red. But I... it was like normal to me. Apparently Dust was trying to take me to court for the beating but... Fluttershy cut it short. I..."

She grits her teeth, slamming her hoof into the floor with a loud thud. "She did it again! And again! I covered the bitch's ass! And this is how she repays me? She was going to kill me! She was..."

The tears start to well, glittering in the shadows as they begin to stream forth. "Why?! I thought we were friends! Why was she... why?" Her words are becoming incoherent, choked in her own tears and hiccups.

Lews does the only thing he knows how to. He leans forward and pulls her close in a tight embrace, holding her tight. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm sorry."

She is silent then, for what seems an interminable time and then, the tears spill forth and she leans against him, her hooves pulling him close, gripping hard and she begins to sob, crying bitterly.

He holds her close, his hands playing through her fur as he looks through the windows. The sun will be setting soon, and at once he realizes, so will a part of his life. He sighs, feeling in its own way this part beginning to set on him already. But it doesn't matter, he thinks, taking in the smell from the mare's blonde mane. It doesn't matter anymore. This is his place and this is where he will remain.


	19. Chapter 19

He taps his claws quietly on the floor, sucking in a deep mouthful of spit. Stopping near the cell door in the underground dungeon, Lews clears his throat. "I..." he begins.

"I know you're there," says a dark voice. "What are you doing here Razor?" says Fluttershy, her face appearing from the gloom of the dark cell, green eyes seeming to be piercing and hard. He takes a step back and swallows.

She chuckles softly and pulls away. "Frightened Razor? Is that why ... you chose her... over me...?" Her eyes are hidden behind the pink mane, the darkness masking her body in shadow.

"You both frighten me," says Lews. He is quiet for a moment and looks up towards the equine, taking in the surroundings of the dingy castle and the lock of metal on the door with cracked floor and dripping ceilings. He'd need to speak to Luna about correcting this. Fluttershy doesn't deserve this...

But if not for him, she'd not be in here to begin with. He sighs, and looks into the cell. Gripping the bars he leans forward, pressing his snout against them. "I'm sorry..." he whispers.

She is quiet for a time, her weight slumping against the door. "Just... just go away Razor..."

He lets his hand slip away from the door frame and sighs and turns away. "Goodbye Fluttershy..." he whispers, his shoulders slumping and walking away. His ears pick up a weeping and he shakes his head forcing himself to walk faster to avoid the feel of his own tears.

"Fluttershy has been arrested!?" says the white mare with a coif mane, her hoofs smacking against her cheeks, violet eyes wide with shock. Her eyes then roll up in her head and the mare falls backwards.

Pathetic, thinks Ulna. She claws at the floor, scraping at it, her eyes focused on the group ahead of her, a desire for movement making her anxious. She squats low, hiding in the bushes as the royal guard canter around, spears against their shoulders, the doors to the small cottage being closed off as items are pulled out and taken away.

The blue mare is arguing with one of the guards who looks at her with a dark glare. Ulna pays it no mind. There is nothing being said of Lews, the one she is actually here for. "Hey!" yells the blue mare. "What are you doing with Fluttershy's stuff?"

"That's classified," says the stallion, his spear at the shoulder. Two more guards cross their spears before the mare, keeping her from following those who are withdrawing items from this "Fluttershy's" cottage.

Ulna tilts her head and snarls. There is the distinct scent of blood and meat coming away from the fridge they are hauling away. Raw and bloody. She sees blood dripping and her eyes narrow. This... is unnatural, she thinks. What could be happening and what has Lews gotten himself into?

"What about Ophelia and the dinosaur thing she was with?" says the blue mare. Ulna jerks her head, looking back towards the duo.

"That is classified," says the stallion. "All I am allowed to say is they are being moved out of Ponyville to another designated location where they may be watched."

"What for?!" yells the mare, her eyes flaring, teeth grinding audibly.

"That's..."

"Yeah! Yeah!" says the mare, shaking her head. "Classified. I know! Come on Rarity, let's go before I do something I regret." The blue mare picks up the white one, jerking her along as the white mare reorients herself. Ulna looks towards the duo, recognizing the agitation in the blue one. They're going to do something, she thinks.

Slinking off along the woods, she follows, keeping the two within ear shot and eye sight. As soon as she finds where it is Lews has been taken she can move out and bring the fool back to the clan.

She snarls, clicking her claws together. The sooner she finds Lews, the sooner she can take him back and this whole mess can be resolved.

Lews looks around in wonder, the walls of the castle sparkling, glimmering. "Woa..." he whispers.

"These will be your new lodgings for the time being until Princess Cadance has decreed otherwise, Lews," says Princess Luna, her eyes slanted, the smell of joy on her. Lews regards her and nods, then goes back to looking towards the whole area of the castle, the castle which lies within the heart of the crystal empire. He shivers inwardly for despite her hoofed feet he hadn't heard her approach so enthralled was he by the splendor before him and still it holds his eyes. So... magical...

"Lews," she says darkly. "This is not a pleasure vacation. What will happen with you..."

"I know..." says Lews, his tone turning somewhat bitter. "It is something never done before. And I should watch my head, right?"

She regards him cooly and nods. "You have the gist of it. God speed Lews. Your choice of partner is most... curious."

"Hmpf. That's one way of putting it," says Lews, turning back towards Luna, his mood souring partly in thinking about the mare. If things could only be simpler with her. He sighs audibly.

He feels a hoof on his shoulder and looks up towards Luna who smiles down at him. "You have a good heart Lews, I'm sure you will do the right thing."

"I hope so," he says. Luna gives him one last nod and disappears in a blast of light. Sighing, he shakes his head and moves down the hall heading towards his room, shared with his mate. His wife... A mare. He really is a ponyphile. He lets out a long breath and walks sullenly through the halls, gazing at the mirrors or even the walls which sparkle and shimmer, drawing his eyes always and elevating his heart.

So it is with a mild shock that he hears her voice suddenly as he walks. "Hey," says the mare as he approaches the area of the castle holding their room. His thoughts had stayed on less then pleasant thoughts when coming down here and he'd been using the splendor about him to ignore it. Now he looks towards her, leaning against the door, hooves crossed over one another, sour look on her face. Did I really choose this for a wife, he thinks. She is so...

"You having second thoughts?" she says, cutting through his thoughts.

"What?" he says, mildly confused, then shakes his head. "No. Nothing like that. Just... worried is all."

"Hmpf," says the pony. She sidles over to him, a glow to her eye. Fear overtakes him and he swallows, wanting to back away but keeping himself firm. His breathing is soft and raspy and the mare leans towards him, tilting his chin up and kissing him along the neck. "Come on," she says, slinging an arm through his own. "Let's seal our marriage vows already."

"What?" he says, letting her drag him into the room. A large bed is right at the center with Ophelia's sword, the claymore, leaning against the bed post. "How do you..."

She turns him around, kissing him lightly on the lips and then tosses him back across the bed, he hitting with a loud wumpf as his body bounces on the matts. "Ophelia..." he begins, trying to sit up when her sword lands, blade first, only inches from his right arm. "Ophelia!" he says, panicking, falling back onto the bed with arms raised to ward off a blow. "What are you..."

She straddles him, her weight against his hips and leans in close to him, nose inches away from his as his head leans back as far as it can in the pillow. "Shut up," she says. "You're mine now. So you ought to get used to it." Her lips press against his and soon he is lost to all thought as the predator above him takes him, body and soul...

He lets himself be taken by her. By this mare, who is more raptor and hunter then he ever believes he can be. His clan... they will not welcome what he has done, but right now, as he feels her tongue moving back in his mouth, the tingling warmth inside and his loins warming, he simply can not make himself care. He grabs the mare, turning her roughly onto her back and she giggles like a filly beneath him, her eyes batting playfully.

He smiles down at her and thinks his mother would be so angry. The mare grabs him suddenly, jerking him close to her face. "Do me right, boy, and I'll make your wildest dreams seem like kid's stuff."

He looks at her and grins. Perhaps his mother would not be so disheartened by this proposition. After all, every raptor wishes their child to wed a predatory woman who can match them in strength and fend for their young. And there is no stronger or more aggressive, he thinks, then this mare below him.

So it is with a passionate kiss that he seals their bond and lets himself sink into her. For this finally, is his choice and his alone. Not Ophelia's, Fluttershy's, Ulna's or anyone else. Just... his.


	20. Chapter 20

Razor moves his hips in rhythm to hers. The pony above him is wild, fervent in her desires, taking in his mouth with a great passion, her shorter tongue thrusting into his mouth and invading him, hungrily devouring him. Her mouth as needy as her hips.

Razor shuts his eyes thinking back to the beginning when this all started. There was a time when this scared him, this wild aggression of hers and his desire for her. A time when he wondered if he was some kind of perverse freak. But now he's been with Ophelia for such a long time that things like "ponyphile" and freak no longer mean anything to him. He is what he is and she is what she is. A wild, demanding mare. Strong and elegant. Beautiful. Captivating. Everything he'd ever wanted from one of his own kind. And something more... Something those from his kind will never give him. A companion and lover.

His body climaxes against hers once more, hot and torrid, his third time in this night. She leans down, rubbing her muzzle against his. "Tired already?" she asks. He nuzzles her back, rubbing a scaly cheek against her furry one.

"I can go again," he whispers. "Just give me a minute."

"Wimp," she says, pushing him back lightly and snuggling in against his stomach. Razor wraps his arms around her chest, feeling the soft tickle of her wings on his arms, the soft velvety fur of her chest against his palms and the quick beating thump of her heart. He inhales her musk and sighs.

Razor is a raptor. A bipedal predator who is supposed to hunt creatures like the one he is against, the blue pegasus. However; things have happened since the pegasus first abducted him. An interest where he thought there was none and a power... that is unexpected, and feelings, buried deep, ones that he'd wanted to deny. But as he rubs against her scalp, nipping lightly at her ear, enjoying how it twitches of its own, he smiles. He's come to accept that he has feelings for this pony. That he may actually be falling in love with her.

It is only natural he assumes. It has been several months now since that time. Several months now since he has come down to the crystal empire and had time to acclimate himself to his new life and friends. Friends...

He sighs. This part, this nagging feeling of another pony he knew at first, and feeling some responsibility for her, is something his mate is not in full approval of. Speaking of her is always difficult.

"Ophelia..." he whispers quietly.

The pony leans away, turning to stare at him darkly with her amber eyes. "What?" she half growls, already knowing what his tone implies.

"I um... want to visit Fluttershy tomorrow."

Ophelia snorts and turns away. "You spend too much time coddling that psycho."

He wants to say something along the lines of "well you're a psychotic too," but keeps his mouth shut. With Ophelia it's best to keep quiet rather then push a subject. He leans down against the pillow himself and sighs. "I just wanted to tell you, is all."

She turns, wrapping her hooves around him, her face pressed against his snout. Her eyes burn brightly in the dark room, boring into him. "You cheat on me..." she says. "And I'll snuff you out."

He swallows audibly as she puts her head under his chin, snuggling against his chest. Her hooves squeeze tight against his shoulders, digging in almost painfully but Razor does not wish to push away, his fear too strong. When ever he speaks of Fluttershy, the one who had had some affection for him as well when this started, Ophelia becomes... possessive.

Truth be told, he is not sure which pony he should fear more. Both have done things... he is terrified of. The words "I will snuff you" from Ophelia's mouth could be just jest, or could be more...

Not that Fluttershy is much different. She acts all sweet and kind on the surface. Enough that they have allowed her out of the prisons to be in a kind of watchful probation. But he can still see it, just beneath her eyes. A sorrow and pain that he knows can give way to a very violent emotion. A frightening one.

He shuts his eyes, running his hands through Ophelia's hair, trying to find some measure of peace in the land of dreams. Though it always seems elusive. Tonight seems no different as he begins to wander through the mist, already knowing what it means.

"Hello Razor," says a sweet voice.

"Cadance," he snarls, teeth bared. The pink pony with multicolored mane simply sips her tear gently while looking him over. Almost nightly along with Nightmare Moon, have they invaded his dreams, checking on his progress and Ophelia's. He half wonders why they don't bother her. He'd asked her about it once but as cagey as she is, well... it would be easier to pull a rotted tooth from an angry dragon's mouth then to pry anything she doesn't want pried.

Sighing, his shoulders slumping, he walks over to the princess, seating himself on the floor. "What is it tonight Cadence?"

"Are we already on a first name basis Razor?" she whispers sweetly, her eyes having nothing of the same mirth.

He waves his arm in an exasperated motion. "Considering you invade my dreams nightly so I can't even sleep properly. Yes. I'd say so." She gives him a glare once more as if trying to impose herself on him. "I'm married to a woman who's normal glance makes your angry one seem like a smile. So stop it."

She chuckles lightly, a tinkling of wind chimes. He wonders how they do that. Sound so bright when Ophelia sounds like a mast about to break when she laughs. She sips from her tea and puts the cup down, shutting her eyes.

"I have wonderful news," she says. "Your progress with Ophelia has gone wonderfully, so my mother, Aphrodite, has chosen to grant you a blessing."

He remembers Ophelia's night terrors. Visions that he sometimes seemed to be dragged into. "Her visions will end then?" he asks, tentatively.

Cadence shakes her head. "No, that is not it. You still have things to learn from that."

He throws out his arms, rolling his eyes and turns away. "Then whatever it is, I don't want it! Goodbye!"

"You will want to know this Razor. It will affect you both."

"Then stop playing word games and get on with it," he snarls, already tiring of the word games these princesses seemed to enjoy.

She nods. "Very well. Razor. Ophelia is pregnant."


	21. Chapter 21

"Pregnant," Razor whispers quietly, his heart breaking. Pregnant.

"Yes, pregnant," says the princess all too happily. "You'll soon be a pair of happy parents!"

"Happy?" he whispers. "Right."

"I wish you the best of luck then," and with this he wakens with a snap, his eyes popping open. It is Ophelia's scent that is near him when he looks down, waking. Ophelia's body pressed against his, snuggling against his hide.

Happy, he thinks. How ridiculous. How can he be happy raising another colt's child? For he knows full well there is no way, no possible way in all the stars, that he, a reptile, could impregnate her, a pony. And yet, the gods themselves have decreed her pregnant. So it must not be from anything to do with him. It can not be.

He feels the soft rustling indicating Ophelia's waking, her head lifting up, mouth opening impossibly wide as she pulls her arms away, stretching, her spine cracking as she stretches. She scratches at her chest, looking at him. "Sleep well?" she asks.

"Yeah..." he whispers. "I..."

There is something upsetting in his stomach. He feels something trying to push up in his mouth. Ophelia's eyes narrow. "Bathroom. Now."

There is that dark tone to her voice that allows for no rebuttal. He obeys, without question, rushing to the sink. He lowers his head, the vomit and bile heaving itself up from his mouth. It comes in a torrent of ill tasting vile.

He uses his sickness to cover the weakness in his legs, and the tears that spring forth in his eyes. How could she? How could...

"Hey," she says, leaning against the doorway. "Be at practice on the courtyard by 3:00pm. You still need to practice on your downstroke with the blade."

"Yeah... alright..." he whispers.

She looks at him, her eyes narrowing. Shrugging, she sighs. "What a weak runt," she mouths as she walks away. He snaps his head up, looking only to see as the door slams on his back. He lowers his head into his palms and allows the tears to stream forth, now fully allowing himself the luxury of crying now that she is gone.

Ulna hisses, clawing at the floor angrily. It has been months now, weeks melting into months since she was sent to find Lews and bring him back home. And now, as she walks back and forth, snarling and snapping, she is so near but so very far at once.

The crystal empire. She looks at it, at the towering buildings, the brilliant fortifications in place. She snarls, her lips pulling back from her gums revealing sharp teeth that drip with warm saliva. This... this has infuriated her.

She has found him, oh yes, after more then a month of tracking, she has found him. The blind fool has enlisted himself, enlisted himself in the garrison for their very food. Has revealed himself to the whole bloody pony world! That blasted...!

She snaps absently at the wind, her jaws shutting on nothing but air. She is frustrated. No. Frustrated doesn't begin to cover it. She is seething. If Daydreamer had not demanded he be brought back, son or not, she would leave him here to rot with his precious ponies.

She shakes her head, the anger turning into a low simmer. There is no two ways about it, the commander's child, he is a ponyphile. The most perverse of offenses, one who has physical attraction for the very substance he eats. It is enough to make her heave.

She stares, lips curling, watching as those colorful, bright glass looking ponies prance about, their hooves clicking merrily on the ground. None aware of the predator just within their midst. None aware they could die at any moment.

"Rar!" she hears a small voice say. She looks down at her feet, seeing a young foal, pink with a blue mane and tail, looking at her, wagging his tail. "Rar!" he says, making a face and stretching his neck out. "Rar!"

She makes a low, dangerous growling noise in the back of her throat. The foal cocks an eye and smiles. "You're funny, just like the other one!"

"The other one?" she says in a low voice. "What other one," she says, lowering her body so her nose is nearly level with the foal's.

"The other one who lives in the castle with the princesses, silly!" he says, pointing with his small hoof towards the large tower. Ulna lifts her head, pulling away from the small one, grunting in annoyance. That she already knows. "Everyone knows he lives with the princesses."

"Yes," she grunts. "Of that I'm aware. Too painfully aware."

"Heh. You act like that guy's girlfriend!"

"Girlfriend?" she says, her head snapping to attention. The foal ignores it.

"Yeah. Some girl pony with wings. She pushes him around a lot. I asked him why he lets her do that. He said it's cuz she has bigger teeth then he does. I think grown ups are funny."

"Yes," she hisses. "They can be."

The sinking in her gut where a spec of hope had remained, vaporizes. A pony who pushes him around? And he allows her? The shame in these actions can not truly be measured. It...

"Well... bye!"

She looks towards the small foal as he bounds away, his hooves clip clopping on the pavement. Truly she could have snapped him up, crushing his bones between her teeth. It would have made a fine supper. But his loss would have not gone without notice, and for now... she can not afford to be noticed.

Eyes narrowing, she lowers her head, slinking off, moving deeper into the city while keeping to the shadows and avoiding prying eyes, especially those of young curious foals who have no fear. Especially those.

Razor wipes his eyes, wandering about in a daze of the outskirts of the city. Initially he'd wanted to visit Fluttershy, but now... with what is happening, he does not want to do it. He does not have the desire right now to face his friend.

Ophelia is pregnant. How could she? How could Ophelia claim she loved him and then be frolicking about with another colt?

He snaps his teeth absently, grinding them against one another. He...

"Trouble in paradise?" says a voice he has not heard in the longest time. One he'd forgotten and abandoned. It comes out like a snake like whisper against long teeth, almost snapping at the end. A raptor. One he knew once...

"Ulna?" he whispers quietly, turning a heavy head in her direction

The pink reptile snarls, stomping towards him. "Who else, you sick ponyphile! Do you know how long I've been mucking around through these cities in search of you? And now I find you... being pushed around by our food? It just..."

She has a wild look to her eyes, something overly familiar to him when a certain mare is angry. He can barely see the reptile before him, instead seeing a blue mare with amber eyes. Gritting his teeth, he growls, "go away."

"What?!" she snaps, taken aback by his sudden agression. "Have you lost your senses? I'm not..."

"Go. Away."

She stares, her mouth partly agape, eyes blinking rapidly. Mouth shutting slowly, her eyes narrow, the plume of feathers on her crest rising in her agitation. Razor stands his ground, no longer afraid of women who have their shackles raised. "Go away," he repeats.

She grunts, her form seeming to deflate before him. He turns his head away, turning his back on her when something hits him in the back of the head. He falls with a thud, his mind falling into blackness. As his conscious fades, he hears her snarl, "I'm not going home without you Lews. It's been too long."

Lews, he thinks. Who is that? My name is Razor. Then his mind blacks out completely.


	22. Chapter 22

The door to her room opens slowly and Ophelia enters, head held low, shoulders hunched. She opens the fridge door, slowly plodding to the table after grabbing a bottle of pickles, pulling out her seat, scraping it along the floor. It sounds unusually loud in the room today and she considers this for a moment. Of course, normally "he'd" be chatting with her, talking some thing stupid of how beautiful she looks or how worn out she's made him from the exercises they've had to work.

But he's not here. Like he wasn't at practice more then five hours ago. He never showed and when she called Fluttershy she said he'd never showed there either. She'd have thought Fluttershy was faking it except she'd insisted on coming over to check on him and had called on the hour since. So he's not over at her place. He is just gone. Run away probably. The damned runt. Couldn't handle her, no doubt.

She unscrews the cap to the pickles, pulling one out, crunching the end off slowly, masticating it. She pushes the bottle away and stares at her telephone, sitting at the center of the table. Staring... teasing...

There is one person she can call about this. Even if it's only to talk. But she doesn't want to. She'd just say how foolish she was to have gotten involved with him or how she shouldn't keep him anyways. But...

Sighing, she pulls the phone close, dialing out the number and waits impatiently for the other end to pick up. It rings three times before there is an answer from the other end. A voice that is all too chipper and happy. She lets out a long breath and says, "Hello Yuganna. Is Miria home?"

"Sorry. She hasn't come back yet. Actually I haven't seen her all day. Have you?"

"No," says Ophelia flatly. "I wouldn't be calling her if I had."

"Oh," says Yuganna quietly. "I..."

"Just tell her to call me when you see her." With these words she hangs up the phone with a slam, resting her head down on her hooves. She shouldn't have spoken so coldly but...

A single tear slips down her cheek, a light sniffle coming from her nose. "Razor..." she whispers. "Where the buck are you?"

The misty haze surrounds him, its cold seeping into his legs. Razor looks around groggily, snapping his jaws. "Where are you?!" he hisses, already in an irritable mood. Even away from the Crystal Empire they come nightly. "Show yourself already!"

The clip clop of hooves on earth echoes loudly in this place, the dream world, sounding like it comes from everywhere at once. But he does not shake or quiver when Luna appears before him, her elegant mane showing a world of stars and planets spiraling and moving about.

"Is that any way for thou to showest respect to your empress?"

"Rrrrr..." he growls. "You've been nothing but troublesome of late. And my tensions are running high, especially since the... incident. I'm going home."

"But thou seems to be leaving it. Isn't home the other direction from hence though are headed?"

He presses his lips together, snorting noisily through his nose. "We see," she says. "Thou hast' acquired some of your mare's personality already."

"I'm not going back to her!" he hisses.

"And why is that?"

"You know why!" he screams, the pain and humiliation wanting to tear its way out of his flesh. Even now his mind and heart won't accept it, that she cheated on him. His hand moves briefly over his chest, head bowed. "I don't want to go back," he whispers.

"No," says Luna in a calm voice. "Tellest us what troubles you."

"She cheated on me!" he screams, veins bulging at his throat. "That... mare... cheated on me!"

"And how dost thou knowest this?" says Luna, looking him over quietly, her eyes narrow and calculating.

"Because Cadence told me she's pregnant and how can a mare be pregnant from someone ... from someone like me?" he says, slapping his chest, his voice subdued. "I'm not like her..." he whispers. "So how can she be pregnant if she didn't cheat on me?"

Luna chuckles. "Foolish, like any colt. You assume that it can not be done because it is not normal for two unlike objects to create a third and yet your relation is not normal. Unlike and unlike have become one and yet, now you presume to know what can and can not happen? What a god can and can not do?"

"Of course not!" says Razor, becoming exasperated. "I'm not trying to say what a god can or can't do! I'm talking about what a reptile and a... a ... mammal can..."

"But you are telling us what a god can do Razor."

"What?" he says, his voice stilling, eyes widening. Luna walks over to him slowly, her wing opening and grasping his shoulders, pulling him close.

"Razor, I have come searching for you now, because what has been given to you and Ophelia happens only rarely. A gift bestowed by the gods like this is not often, and we would not want the first child of such a union to be without a father. Her father. It would be... improper."

"Wait..." he says, pulling out from under her wing. "Father? Me?" he says, tapping his chest. "But how..."

"Are you questioning the gods again?" she says quietly, her tone taking a dangerous tone.

"I ..." says Razor, feeling some real fear in him now as he realizes the anger he may be incurring from Luna, who even amongst raptors is a god. He bows his head and kneels. "No. I apologize."

She lightly taps him on the shoulder with her horn, having him lift his head. Lightly nuzzling him, she whispers, "Go back to your child, Razor. Ophelia is waiting for you."

Still uncertain, he clenches his hands into fist and nods. Satisfied, a smile appears on Luna's lips. Her eyes shine brightly then, wings spreading wide, her mane seeming to spread, growing larger, enveloping everything in Razor's vision until even his feet and the earth below him are taken up, and then he is swallowed up, falling into that black abyss. He wakens with a gasp, a cold sweat running down his back.

He feels a light prodding on his back. Something knobbed and hard, jabbing him between the shoulders. He turns to look into the crimson eyes of a green pelted mare with a flowing crimson mane. Miria. Ophelia's sister. Ophelia's older sister and a captain of the guard.

"How'd you..." he says suddenly.

"Shhhh..." she says, putting a hoof to his lips and pointing to the fires across where a squabble ensues between two reptiles. Razor narrows his eyes, staring from Ulna, the pink raptor who'd knocked him unconscious and dragged him here, and Raven, the red bull raptor who towers over her.

He growls lightly under his breath. Ulna is the one he'd once had a crush on, thought he even loved, with her flowing scalp of scales flowing almost like a mane and a lithe long body. He'd believed once that she was perfect. Raven on the other hand was one he'd constantly been off put by, picked on and bullied by. When he'd disappeared he was one Razor had been happy to be rid of and an inspiration for training hard beneath Ophelia so that he couldn't be picked on again.

For a moment when waking the first time, Razor had thought that maybe Ulna had wanted him, come back for him from her own volition. Something that could push away the pain. But it was his mother's doing. Not hers. Raven's appearance alongside her had shown that. They'd only been following orders from the pack leader to bring him back, because he was her son.

He'd allowed them to drag him along because they were making him and his depression made him compliant. But if the child in Ophelia is in fact his own, then there is no reason to remain...

He turns towards Miria and nods. "Let's go home."


	23. Chapter 23

Her claws run through her scalp once more, ends of her fingers pushing against her temples to avoid the impending migraine Raven is giving her. Again, Ulna has to go through this lecture about "why" they are bringing back Lews, the runt and reject of the clan litter.

Sometimes, thinks the pink dramasaurid, she just wishes to slash Raven across the face with her talons, so dense he is. Or at least slap him. Which she does.

The crack across his jaw sends him reeling, his eyes bulging in anger and surprise, but more surprise then anger. It's an educated attack as Raven can truly hurt her and she highly doubts Razor will be able to defend her. And by the way he looked at Raven, she almost doubts he'd even want to. He'd seemed to smile for the first half day while they were talking, going on about this "dream girl" which was a pegasus, disgusting creature, though she'd pretended it was a good thing and nothing out of the normal, when Raven had shown and Lews' face had turned from a quiet acceptance to despair and then to outright aggression. His look he'd given her, it was one of betrayal and... killing intent? That was very unlike the Lews she'd known.

He'd kept to himself after that, nearly snapping at Raven when provoked. It was so unlike him. There was something odd about Lews, something different since he went into the pony village and that change... Ulna isn't sure she likes it. But now is neither the time or place for those thoughts.

"Look," she snarls. "I don't much care that you have a beef with him being the "runt" of the litter," she says, moving her fingers in a condescending motion, "but the leader has said he needs to be brought back and that's what we're doing."

"If he's so enamored with his filthy horse slut then we should leave him to it and let the gods sort him out. He is not one of us!"

Ulna sighs. "Just... shut up."

"What?!" snarls Raven, becoming aggressive.

"We need to get moving. The further we get away from these ponies, the better."

"At least on that we agree," hisses Raven.

"Lews!" she calls out. "We're going. We'll rest again in an hour! Lews?"

She cocks her head and looks towards the spot where Lews had been resting, except he isn't there. In fact, as she sways her head, he is nowhere to be seen and his scent is actually fading. "Shit," she hisses. "Where could he have gone off to?"

"Ooooh," says Raven mockingly. "Maybe he's gone prancing away with one of his ponyphile friends."

Ulna sniffs the floor and snorts, growling as she lifts her head, her upper lip pulling back, eyes narrowed.

"What?" says Raven suddenly confused.

"That's exactly what he did! I smell horse hair here. God damn it! He went off with another pony!"

"Then let's kill her," hisses Raven. "We'll tear her stomach open and show Lews what the real reason for ponies being is."

Ulna smiles. "You know... I actually like that idea. Let's go."

She hears Raven purr and she herself feels like purring. After all she's had to endure these last months trying to get near Lews, killing a pony sounds like a blessing in disguise. Even better if it's that equine bitch he's been ranting about.

Ulna licks her upper lips. What pleasure it will be to show him what real females can do and not these fake parodies of edible meat.

Miria watches closely, her hooves sinking into the muddy earth with a thick clip clop sound and observes Razor's splayed toes, how they barely sink or make any sound at all. She remembers when he first came into the barracks as Ophelia's "pet." Stumbling, noisy, clumsy and loud. She'd reprimanded Ophelia, told her how ridiculous it was to take on such a ludicrous creature who could only hold her back, but now... observing the quiet creature and how he cocks his head every so often, holding still for a moment, listening, before moving on, she is not so sure anymore. He has changed. Frighteningly so.

It almost scares her how predatory he looks now, with his sharp teeth and eyes narrowed, looking left and right, those claws sinking into the mud, testing it. He is searching, watching out for other predators. He is a hunter. Pure and simple. And he always was, thinks Miria. You just never saw it and Ophelia sharpened what was already there. If he suddenly turned on you, would you...

"Miria..." he whispers. "Is something wrong?"

"No," she says, shaking her pink mane. "Just thinking."

"About?"

"Why did you leave?" she asks, trying to get her thoughts off her growing fear. "I thought you were content to be Ophelia's lackey."

"I thought she'd fooled around with another. A colt."

"What would make you think she would do that?" says Miria, turning her head away. "She parades you around like you were Celestia's gift from heaven and..."

"Cadance said she was pregnant."

Miria stops, her eyes bulging, mouth falling agape. "What? You're not serious."

"Yes," says Razor. "I thought there was no way it could be mine, so I left... or was abducted and didn't stop Ulna when she grabbed me."

"So why come back now? If you think Ophelia has cheated on you?"

"Because Luna told me so. The child in her womb, it is mine."

"Wha-" says Miria, her mind reeling, when Razor yells, "Get down!"

She is slow to react, distracted. As if in slow motion, she sees a bright red blur lunge out of the bushes, its back legs pulling forward, killing claws coming down towards her, jaws and hand claws open to receive her flesh, and Miria knows there is no time to move, to react. Those claws will rend her flesh asunder.

As she prepares herself for the inevitable, something happens. Razor is suddenly in the way, his thick tail slamming into the large male's side. The momentum of the monster's own attack throws it out of the air colliding into the floor. It falls, splaying in the mud when Razor lands on it, slamming his right foot down, smashing the thing's face deep into the mud.

She only has a moment to stare in awe before she sees another pink blur coming towards Razor. Leaping like the last one did. One Razor does not see. This time it her turn to react.

With a speed uncommon to equines, she moves next to Razor in a blink of an eye, turning around and thrusting her hind hooves out, catching the creature on the knee. There is a cracking sound and then a shriek as the creature falls to the floor, clawing and thrashing.

"She attacked me," Razor whispers, as if in some kind of shock.

"Razor!" Miria yells. "On my back! Now!"

He is quick to respond, leaping onto her back, legs outstretched on either side of her, his hand claws gripping her mane, body leaning forward, squatting against her, snout against her twitching ears. Feeling him firmly in place she begins to gallop downhill. She hears the second animal rear up and roar, leaping at them, the wind of his feet brushing by and teeth snapping at the ends of her tail before he falls in the mud roaring. But he can not keep up and Miria keeps running, her body burning with the adrenaline that is pumping through her system. She only considers briefly that she'd opened herself to attack from Razor and is still technically vulnerable to his sharp teeth.

"She attacked me," he whispers. "She really attacked me..."

Miria smirks. "Yes, well, things more unexpected then that have happened."

The reptile chuckles. "No kidding. Let's go home."

Miria sighs and nods her head, her body relaxing. He will not attack her. It is time to put that part of her mind to rest. "Alright Razor, let's do that."

She continues running, now enjoying something of the closeness of her comrade in arms and smiling at the thought of what Ophelia's reaction will be when she realizes who Miria has brought with her. Yes, that will be something to see.

Her lips twist into a frown. If she doesn't kill him. And that too is a very real possibility.

"That bastard!" Raven hisses, "he hit me!" the reptile roars in surprise.

Ulna watches him through watery eyes, holding her knee close to her face. It has been dislocated and hurts horribly. "Shut up, god damn it!"

"What's with..." Raven is silent as he stares at her and then he rushes over, all snarls and rage, but not at her.

"They... they did this to you!"

His body is shaking, teeth dripping thick strands of saliva. Ulna nods. "Please... help me..."

She sees Raven look towards where the two have left and half wonders if he will leave her here. Abandoned in the dark woods with other predators that can make a meal of her crippled body. He turns back to her, thrusting his snout under her chest to help her up. It hurts, but at least he hasn't abandoned her in a quest for revenge. "They'll pay..." he hisses. "They'll pay... Him and his little mare bitch."

Ulna doesn't argue. Secretly, she herself wants to hurt them. But, that's part of what scares her. "They" hurt her, both of them. That wasn't Lews she saw fighting back there. It was someone else. What did the mare call him? Razor was it? Whatever that was, it wasn't the Lews she knew. She remembers suddenly that look he'd given her, his eyes narrowed, blazing almost. A fiery anger in them she'd only seen in hunters. That wasn't Lews. And maybe that's why she attacked him instead of the pony. Because she's scared. Scared of what he is now and what that means the ponies did to him. Something they as predators could never teach him and that scares the living hell out of her.

She hears Raven snarling, looking towards the horizon where the two ventured off to. "We'll come back for Razor and his little mare bitch later," she says. "First, we need to get home so I can heal up."

"Razor?" he says, that anger disappearing in a puff. "Who the hell is Razor?"

"Come on," says Ulna, trying to nudge Raven forward. "We have some planning to do."

Raven grunts, but finally accedes. Ulna hobbles along with some pain, her knee smarting seriously. She gives the path where the two ran one last glance and whispers to herself, "Razor... what really are you now?"


	24. Chapter 24

Their steps echo in the empty hallways, his own clicking against the tiled floors while hers clip clop. Razor is quiet, thinking, anxious of what he is to say. He runs his tongue over his upper lip, pressing it between his sharpened teeth. "I..." he begins.

"Don't tell Ophelia the real reason you left," Miria says quietly.

"What?!" says Razor, turning to her sharply. "Why not? She has to..."

Miria turns to him, turning him quickly and slams him against the back wall, the armors to either side of him clamoring loudly with the intrusion of their two bodies. Miria leans her face close to his, her pink eyes seeming to glow and turn that same amber as Ophelia's.

"Listen to me," she says. "Do you know what Ophelia was called in her former life?"

Razor tries to smile, to ignore what she is saying. "What former life? That's..."

"NO," says Miria darkly. "No. You listen. What was she called?"

He swallows slowly but shakes his head. "I... I don't know."

"She was called "bloody Ophelia. Not Ophelia of the rippling blade or quick wing Ophelia, but Bloody Ophelia. Can you guess why?"

"I..." He remembers back when the large equine with a bovine type body had come stomping towards him, killing intent in his eyes, then those amber eyes popping out in the shadows. That amber piercing the darkness, the flick of the blade and suddenly there was a shower of blood. A screaming from the very thing that wanted to kill him. Dark words cutting through the thick air like a knife and then another flash and the equine fell apart in two. Fell with both halves showing Razor the innards that slopped down against the floor. It fell. Dead.

He swallows. "You're one too," he says. "Aren't you?"

"This is for your safety Razor. Don't tell her. She. Will. Kill. You."

He feels his heart thudding, trying to tear out of his chest, the sweat beading suddenly on his body. Shaking, he nods. "Y-yeah... but what do I tell her then?"

"The truth," says Miria simply, pulling away from him.

"The truth?!" says Razor, suddenly exasperated. "But you just said...!"

"Pipe down out there!" a voice hollers from a door not too far away, a bottle crashing against it.

Razor swallows. He knows that voice all too well and she is in a bitter mood. "Then... what do I tell her?"

"The truth," says Miria flatly. "I didn't see you go willingly when you were taken. You leave out that you were moving willingly after."

"I... um..." says Razor, scratching at the back of his neck.

"Razor," says Miria, drawing near him. "Leave. It. Out."

He pulls away, looking at the mare before him, her eyes still shining that incredible amber. "I think I know why "they" brought back the two of you as sisters," he grumbles.

Miria chuckles, a type of tingling sound in her throat, her eyes going back to their pink tinge. "I'm just watching out for my "brother" in law. Now come on. Are you ready?" She motions to the door where they'd just heard the crash.

"No," says Razor, looking at the door, feeling his legs trembling, knees wanting to buckle. "I never am... with her. But..." He lowers his head and sighs. Slowly, he raises it, his gaze narrowing. "Let's go anyways."

Miria smiles. "That's the spirit."

"Easy for you to say," he hisses. "You're not the one who will get gutted if you say the wrong word."

"Trust me," says Miria moving closer to him. "I've been at the wrong end of her blade before. It's not pretty."

He snorts, the anger relaxing him somewhat. "Tell me about it."

She cocks an eye at him and snickers, her tail wagging. "Someday, perhaps. When you have more children."

He rolls his eyes. If he can get through the first one, then he'll worry about what will happen when she gets pregnant again. If she gets pregnant again... If. So many variables and one homicidal mare in between them. Sighing he whispers, "let's go."

Ophelia sniffles, rubbing her hoof against her nose. Stupid nosy neighbors. Can't they keep their yelling down even one day, she thinks. She sits solemnly at the table, no longer turning the empty bottle of pickle juice now that she threw it against the door. It lies broken on the floor, glass shards spread about with the juice slowly leaking down the door.

"Um..." says Fluttershy, sitting at the living room sofa with a quiet Yuganna. "I'll clean that up."

"No," growls Ophelia. "Leave it alone."

"I..." says Fluttershy.

Ophelia's hoof slams down on the table as she turns to glare at the mare who backs down into the sofa as to try and get as small and inoffensive as possible. "Leave it."

Fluttershy swallows, her body shivering. "O-okay," says the blonde mare. Ophelia turns back, tapping her hoof angrily on the table. It's better to be angry, then she won't cry. She won't...

There is a light rapping at the door. "What the hell?" Ophelia barks. The rapping starts anew and Ophelia glares. Tossing the chair aside, she stomps to the door, the glass crunching beneath her foot. She looks down and grunts, "Can't someone clean this shit up?"

"Ah... I'm on it!" says Fluttershy, zipping away for the broom.

Yuganna levitates the liquid and broken shards quietly. The two mares pass a silent glance and Ophelia nods. Sometimes having a magical sister has its perks.

She opens the door, her hoof crunching where she remembers she used to have fingers and a hand. The memory keeps slipping but...

"Um..." The one at the door swallows audibly. "Hello darling."

Ophelia glares at him, the seconds ticking away, her hoof shaking with anger and fury as she grinds her teeth. "Look..." he says. "I know..."

She is suddenly grabbing him, jerking him inside and slamming him roughly against the wall. "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?"

"I... I...?!" he stutters, his eyes wide and body quivering like a leaf.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, YOU GOD DAMNED..."

"I- I...?!"

He was kidnaped Ophelia," says a voice calmly, to her right. Ophelia turns slowly to see the face attached to that voice. Serene eyes regard her, but with a faint tint of yellow gold in them. There is that anger and discontent riding beneath it, carried over from their past lives.

"Phantom Miria," hisses Ophelia. "What do you know of this?"

Miria sighs. "Your boyfriend was kidnaped by his own kind. I followed him. When he woke and there was an opening, I made my presence known and we made a break for it."

"Is this true," says Ophelia, regarding Razor with cold, dangerous eyes. He swallows audibly and nods, the fear making him sweat. She can smell it, that heat pouring down him. She leans close running her tongue up the side of his neck, lightly sinking her teeth into the side, feeling him wince. "It better be," she whispers. "You put me through shit and I don't like worrying about you."

"You... you were ... worried?" he whispers almost inaudibly.

She slams him against the wall again. "Never. Do. That. Again. You understand?" She growls each word, purring it darkly. He sees the reptile pale, but he nods vigorously, still staring at her. She leans her head close, rubbing it under the nape of his throat. "God damn it," she whispers, feeling the first trickles of real tears. "I was worried, you fucking idiot. I was worried."

Slowly, he wraps his arms around her, being careful with his talons so he doesn't scrape her skin. He's always so careful, so conscientious.

She starts crying. The tears and screams start coming out and she can't make them stop, even though everyone is around her, even though she is making a fool of herself. She hugs him tighter, hearing him grunt and continues to bawl, the screams not wanting to stop...

She'd dismissed everyone as soon as she was able to calm down, he running his talons lightly through her mane, slowly tickling her neck. It had taken awhile, probably over half an hour, but as the door closed she'd taken him, slowly, over to the bed.

Though she seemed calm, she was quiet, and her grip firm. She'd leaned him against the bed, pressing her own weight on him, kissing him lightly, then hard. He'd tried to whisper her name but she'd told him to be quiet.

She'd done much of what she typically done every night, but she was gentle this time, but parts of the love making had been more demanding and more time consuming. There wasn't the roughness, but there was a need. Each movement and action she took, a quivering glance or move here, a touch there... it all cried of need.

The kisses were long and passionate, consuming, as was the actual act itself. Through it all she never said a word and never let him say anything either except for his yelps when her grip or her bite were particularly hard. As she stared at him, those dark eyes looking into his, a deep gold that burned, he'd swallowed.

This act, this night, was to show him something he should have realized earlier. He belongs to her, and her alone. And no one else...


End file.
